Early voters wait in lines for up to six hours at polls across Las Vegas

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    LAS VEGAS, NV (KVVU) — Early voting for Nevada’s caucus began on Saturday. At its peak, some said they waited in line for six hours.

At Coronado High School, the wait time was around four hours. Some voters jumped in to help to get things moving.

Taylor Chervo got in line around 11:30 in the morning. “I was expecting it to be a quick process, no more than an hour,” he said.

Instead he waited around three hours.

“It was daunting but we always vote the first day so we’re waiting,” Larry Fleischer said.

“The line is wrapped all the way around multiple hallways,” Chervo said. “They kept making announcements about how there was a shortage in volunteers.”

Some dedicated Democrats stayed. Others said they’ll try again another day.

“For me, it was important that we get this done and participate in the process,” Jane Neitz-Singleton said.

“Tuesday early, I’ll be one of the first here on Tuesday morning,” Donna Swirck said.

NV Dems confirmed early voting will be done with paper ballots. And voters must rank their top three choices, in order for their ballot to count.

“When you actually went in to go and vote, it was just one person collecting the ballots, no machines, nothing like that,” Chervo said.

Voters said checking in is what took the most time.

“They’re not prepared,” Swirck said. “Maybe I’ll go volunteer now.”

“They have to scroll through the entire voter database in Nevada,” Yasmeen Danial said. “There’s no search option so unfortunately they do have to take a while. And then they check your I.D., address and once you’re confirmed a Democrat, then you can go into vote.”

Danial will be a caucus captain for the Warren campaign at Coronado on Saturday. Having a photo I.D. isn’t a requirement to participate, according to the NV Dems.

“We’re being careful, we’re practicing because we don’t want a lot of mistakes,” she said. “We don’t want to take up people’s time then have it wasted.”

She added volunteers and staff with NV Dems are doing all they can to avoid the chaos that happened in Iowa.

“The reason I came to early vote was because of what was happening in Iowa,” Chervo said. “I didn’t want to be in a caucus.”

“Ironically, we caucused several elections ago and it was such a long process,” Neitz-Singleton said. “We thought early voting would be faster. It probably worked out to be about the same.”

Would you wait in line for two hours to vote or wait four more years in office,” Danial said.

Workers along the Las Vegas Strip have four spots to cast early ballots. One of those sites is inside the Bellagio. It is a 24-hour location for casino employees who work overnight.

NV Dems in response to the long lines, said

NV Dems is happy to see the number of energized Democrats participating in our first ever early voting period. Our volunteers and staff are working to make every site runs as efficiently as possible and to ensure every voter gets to make their voice heard. As a reminder, we built in flexibility for participation during the early vote period and caucus-goers are free to participate at any early vote site within their county of residence across four days.

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