Las Vegas Elections Chief Says Counting Going ‘as Quickly as We Can’

A sign reading "Vote Here Today" sways in the wind outside a polling station at sunset on the eve of the U.S. midterm elections, in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Nov. 7, 2022. (Ronda Churchill/AFP via Getty Images)

A top election official in Clark County, Nevada, asserted that workers are counting ballots “as quickly as we can” following widespread criticism over the pace.

“I can tell you with a great deal of confidence that everything we are doing here in Clark County is moving those ballots as quickly as we can,“ Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria told reporters in North Las Vegas on Thursday. ”But I have to caution you in saying we don’t want to move too fast. We want to make sure we’re accurate, validating the signatures and the identity of these folks.”

Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, has about 1.3 million registered voters. It’s the only county in the Silver State that has a Democrat lean.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) is trailing GOP candidate Adam Laxalt, while Democrat Gov. Steve Sisolak is trailing Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, a Republican. Sisolak is currently trailing Lombardo by more than 3 percentage points, while Cortez Masto is behind by 1 percent, or around 9,000 votes as of Friday morning.

In an interview with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, Laxalt noted that Cortez Masto “does not have the amount of votes left to be able to catch us,” noting that she will have to win by 63 percent. The ballots that are being counted are “election day voters” and not pre-election mail-in ballots, he remarked.

Former President Donald Trump was among the most prominent critics of the vote-counting in Clark County as well as in Maricopa County, Arizona.

“Very strange things are happening with the votes cast in Nevada and Arizona. Stay tuned!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform.

“So sad to see Republicans attack and foolishly tarnish the results of the Midterms,” Trump also wrote. “WE WON, Nancy got fired and is on her way to foreign lands, Republicans are taking over the House and, importantly, its Committees, and may very well win the Senate Majority.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.