Lori Norcutt appears to have won the Fallon City Council Ward 1 seat outright following a special election ordered after hundreds of eligible voters were left out of the original June contest.
Unofficial results released Tuesday night show Norcutt received 122 votes, or 56.74 percent, giving her more than the majority required to avoid a November runoff. Ryan Swirczek received 76 votes, or 35.35 percent, and Daniel Doty received 17 votes, or 7.91 percent.
The results remain unofficial while election officials wait for any remaining mail ballots and allow voters time to correct signature problems. Churchill County Clerk Linda Rothery said the county will canvass the results Wednesday, July 29.
“It’s apparent who the winner is,” Rothery said. “I don’t think enough additional mail ballots will come in to change the outcome.”
Mail ballots had to be postmarked by Election Day and received by Saturday. Voters with signature issues had until Monday to cure their ballots before the canvass.
Only 215 of Ward 1’s 1,938 registered voters participated, resulting in turnout of 11.09 percent. Mail voting accounted for most of the ballots, with 123 submitted by mail. Another 50 people voted early in person, and 42 voted on Election Day.
“I always expect more turnout,” Rothery said. “I was hoping we’d have better turnout for the second round because of how publicized it was. We pushed it out on social media, so this was a lot smaller than I expected.”
The July 21 special election was ordered after county officials determined that 881 registered Ward 1 voters had been assigned to the wrong precinct before the June election. Because their voter records were not updated following changes within Nevada’s statewide election management system, those residents received ballots that did not include the City Council race.
The June results were never certified because the error denied hundreds of eligible voters the opportunity to vote in the contest.
Before that election was voided, Norcutt also led the unofficial count with 161 votes. Swirczek received 110 votes, and Doty received 32.
County officials said the affected voter records were manually corrected and verified before the special election. The county clerk’s office also put additional auditing procedures in place to compare voter registrations with precinct assignments and identify future discrepancies.
The special election featured the same three candidates who appeared on the June ballot.
Under the election rules, a candidate receiving more than 50 percent of the vote wins the office without advancing to the general election. Based on the unofficial results, Norcutt cleared that threshold and is expected to take office in January.
Rothery said the low participation was not necessarily unusual for a primary-style municipal election, particularly one held separately from a larger general election ballot.
“I don’t think people view primaries as important,” she said. “We have people who only come out for the general election.”
Michael O’Neill noted that turnout was also historically low when the City of Fallon conducted its own separate primary elections. That was one reason the city moved its races into the consolidated county election system, where municipal contests appear alongside other county and statewide races.
The special election may conclude Fallon’s City Council races for the year. Paul Harmon was unopposed for the Ward 3 seat and will also take office in January.
Election officials are now preparing for the November general election. Rothery said candidate filing for the Churchill County sheriff’s race is scheduled to close Friday, July 24, with two candidates having filed as of election night.
She also said the extended five-week candidate filing period required under current law created additional difficulty for election staff compared with the traditional two-week filing window.
The Ward 1 results will become final after the Churchill County commissioners canvass the vote next Wednesday, July 29.
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