Nevada Voters Demand Change So Insistently That the State Legislature Begins Its First Day of Early Voting Inside a Single Kohl's Queue
Early-voting lines in Henderson, Nevada stretch so far that the county has rerouted its entire election apparatus to the parking lot of a department store.
The line outside the Kohl's at the Galleria at Sunset in Henderson, Nevada, now runs past the food court, through the parking structure and out onto the interstate, where county officials have set up a second queue for voters who are still waiting to find the first one. Clark County election workers confirmed on Tuesday that the building has been converted into a permanent polling site, with cardboard booths stacked between the racks of winter coats.
Election staff have been ordered to answer every question about the midterms with a single instruction: take a number and wait. Officials said the numbers have now reached the point where ticket dispensers are being refilled by forklift. "We are not going to turn anyone away who wants to express a desire for less conflict," said Henderson deputy registrar Laura Venn, standing beside a pallet of voting machines. "Those who want their families to stop fighting are welcome in the aisle."
Voters interviewed in the queue said the cost of living was the dominant concern, though several said they had not yet decided whether the change they wanted required a new majority in Congress. Some recounted spending nearly eighty dollars on fuel just to reach the back of the line, and one voter reported that she had already been waiting long enough to fall out of her own sense of time. Election officials have authorized a shuttle of folding chairs to be driven along the queue every two hours.
The county has announced that early voting will remain open at the department store until the last ballot is cast, and that the store's mannequins will be relocated to the parking lot to make room for additional booths. Staff expect the line to reach the state capital by the weekend.
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