Long wait for election results

Election results were in the box with Schroedinger’s cat as we put The Record-Courier to bed on Tuesday.

The famous thought experiment precisely captures the state we find ourselves, not knowing who among the candidates vying for office will win. Even with the results released early Wednesday morning, there are still questions that only time will answer.

If we were going to guess, we might as well commission a poll for all the accuracy that affords.

We spend too much time watching the weather to believe in the absolute value of any sort of prognostication. What will be will be without any help from us, besides voting, like everyone else.

Early voting ended on Saturday with 16,925 ballots safely in election workers’ hands. That represents 41.8 percent of active registered voters in the county, according to the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office.

With 5,000 more registered voters more than there were in 2018, it’s as many as 13,000 people will turn out to the polls to vote on Tuesday, despite a fairly sketchy weather report. That would bring Douglas to the 74.08 percent turnout that occurred four years ago.

If all those folks want to use a voting machine, it’s going to be a long day for poll workers.

As we write this editorial on Monday morning, we know that we’ll have a better idea of turnout and weather on Tuesday, but because the paper goes to bed at lunchtime, it will be a long wait before any results are available.

We’re informed by Clerk-Treasurer Amy Burgans that the results likely won’t be available before 10 p.m. Tuesday. Those results won’t include any paper ballots turned in on Election Day or that arrive in the mail. Burgans said the primary saw 5,000 ballots that weren’t counted with initial results, and that’s a big percentage to have waiting in the wings until Wednesday or even Thursday.

Like a mall Santa nodding at a request for a pony, but not promising anything, we’re going to have to provide our readers with the best information we can without getting attached to a narrative.