Washoe County officials yesterday said ballots will be in the mail next week but then walked back on that statement after some of those ballots were discovered to have incorrect information.
Both sample ballots and regular ballots sent to those living out of state, but registered in Assembly District 26, had errors. One of those errors was listing Beth Smith on the ballot after she already won the primary for her seat on the Washoe County School District’s board of trustees.
“Beth Smith won the primary for school district trustee District D. That race should not have been on the ballot, but it was,” said county spokesperson Bethany Drysdale. “The second error is that the Libertarian candidate for Assembly District 26 was not listed on the ballot.
“Ballots were sent to certain early groups such as military, overseas, and out-of-state voters. I don’t have a specific number but it is a small percentage. The ballots to residents in Washoe County had not been mailed yet, so they’re being corrected and mailed. They will be mailed on time, which is by October 19.”
It is not clear at the time of publication what will happen to the erroneous ballots and if new ones will be sent to the residents who are out of state.
“We are working with the Secretary of State on that,” Drysdale said.
Registered voters can expect their ballots to start appearing in their mail next week.
“We are required to send the mail ballots by October 19, and it looked like we were going to be well ahead of that deadline,” she said. “We discovered an error with the ballots, so they’re being corrected and will now be mailed by the deadline rather than 10 days early like we thought.”
Interim Registrar of Voters Jamie Rodriguez said ballots can now be more easily tracked. 
“We’ve really tried to streamline that so that whether people are watching online or whether they’re coming and observing in person, they’re better able to really follow how the ballot is being processed,” she said. “So we do have an updated life of the ballot on our website for people who really want to understand those lives of the ballot.”
Early voting starts Oct. 22, 2022. Those mailing their ballots are asked to sign their ballots.
“If you want to vote by mail, but want to drop off your ballot, rather than putting it through the Postal Service, you can do that,” Rodriguez said.
More than 60 voting locations will be available on election day. Wait times at each center will be posted online.
“We do have a varying degree of machines for both early voting and Election Day at the various vote centers throughout the county,” Rodriguez added. “So in terms of size and wait times, [we] highly encourage people to go to that wait time tool on our website to see what that wait time would be if they were, you know, ready to go and vote.”
