Tales From The Front. Battleground Nevada

We just got back from voting about a half an hour ago. And I knew even before I asked. But first the setup.

We have voted early at the Galleria Mall in Henderson for the last four cycles now. A quick description so you get an idea. If you’re looking down on the mall from above, think of the west half of the mall as a cross. On the left is an anchor department store, and the interior doors open out onto the main E-W mall hallway. About 30′ ft is a N-@ hallway. The south side is the exit to the parking lot, it drosses the main aisle, and dead ends at another store. That area between the main hall and the dead end store is where the polling place is, and it’s large.

Normally the line starts pretty much when you come in through the doors to the right, goes across the main hall, around the polling place and back to check in. That is normally about a 1:15-1:45 wait. Today when we walked in, people were walking to the main hall, turning left, and going almost the whole 30′ to the Kohl’s before turning around to wait all the way back to the doors, over to the right, and then down and around the polling place. Figure 2-2:30 hours.

We didn’t wait that. Being blind with balance issues, we’ve been instructed to walk towards the check in tables and find a poll worker, who gets us checked in. We were in and out in under an hour, but at least you have the lay of the land.

The people waiting on line were actually quite cheerful, chatting with each other and making new friends. This clearly wasn’t some form of punishment for them, they were perfectly happy to be there in that line, waiting their turn to be good citizens.

I can’t read the monitor, so we use one machine. Teri votes first, then pulls her card, puts mine in, and asks me anything she needs to know. While she was voting I chatted up a poll worker at the end of the aisle. I asked him if he knew if Saturday had been a record day for first day voting and he said, Oh yeah. We were jammed all day. We had some 2,400 people vote in person, and another 2,000 who stopped in to drop their mail in ballots in the drop box. At least 4,400 votes in that one location.

And it’s like that all over, or at least in Clark County apparently. Teri talked to a co-worker who had gone up with her husband mid Sunday afternoon to a polling place closer to them. The place was jammed to the gills. But she didn’t say anything about anybody bitching about the wait.

Here’s what you need to remember. This is Clark County, the Democratic party’s version of Cook County, Illinois. Clark County in the south, and Reno in the north provide the massive blue wave that the rural GOP has to overcome on election day. And in both places, the Nevada Union King, the Culinary Worker’s Union is already out in full force, beating the bushes for every last vote.

Let me close with this. In 2020, the Galleria polling place was in a big sided tent in the parking lot to provide ventilation for Covid. We waited about 90 minutes in line. The fact that this line was at least a half hour longer than 2020 is a positive sign in a Democratic stronghold. But I also think this might be a glimmer of Kamala’s secret weapon, the abortion issue. I can’t help but get the feeling that at least some of those present in line today are what I call couch potato Voters who likely might not have showed up to vote except for an issue that inflamed them personally. 14 days. GOTV and don’t touch that dial.

I thank you for the privilege of your time.

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