Secretary of State Dean Heller, Nevada's chief election officer, said that in the off-year election of four years ago, voter turnout was 69 percent. It traditionally goes up in elections that feature a presidential campaign. One reason for the low turnout is because election officials are not able to purge the names of those who don't vote. Heller said many people sign up while registering their cars but never turn out at the polls.
Federal law prohibits taking a name off of voter rolls for five years.
If this keeps up, the percentage of voters will continue to decline, Heller said. Registered voters who don't cast ballots are put in the inactive class, but their names can't be wiped off the list for two election cycles. There were 897,865 people officially eligible to vote statewide in Tuesday's election. Read our policy on privacy and cookies.