Nevada Election Results: Polls Close at 7 P.M. Tuesday, and Early Votes Report First

Nevada voters go to the polls on Tuesday to choose federal, state and local officeholders, and the Associated Press has published its guide to how election night will unfold, the Las Vegas Sun reported. Polling places close at 7 p.m. local time — 10 p.m. Eastern — and state law requires polls to stay open until every voter who was in line by closing time has cast a ballot.

Most Nevada ballots are cast before Election Day: in the state's 2022 U.S. Senate race, about 80 percent of roughly 1 million votes arrived early or by mail, according to the AP. The AP expects every county to release at least some early results at the start of the night. In Clark and Washoe counties, the first update tends to include all early in-person results and part of the mail results, with in-person Election Day results released after that. In 2024, Nevada's first results began arriving about three hours after polls closed, and the state passed 50 percent reporting less than 10 minutes later.

The AP said it will report results and declare winners in races for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, controller and state treasurer, as well as U.S. House races, ballot measures, state Supreme Court races, legislative seats and the race for mayor of Henderson. The AP does not make projections: it declares a winner only when there is no scenario in which the trailing candidate could close the gap. Nevada has no automatic recounts — a candidate may request and pay for one regardless of the margin.