Some Lyon County residents may be unregistered to vote due to address glitch; how to check if you're affected
Submitted by Kelsey Penrose on Tue, 10/08/2024 - 10:05am
In late September, one Lyon County voter, Clark Mandichak, went to confirm his voter registration information, only to find the following error message from the Secretary of State’s office:
The County registrar has rejected your Home Address with the following message: Residential Address does not exist and polling location cannot be determined.
The reason? Mandichak lives in a newly built neighborhood which, for some reason, is not registered as an existing address with Lyon County elections.
“The voter registration system has fallen apart, and hundreds of people living out in new builds have been unregistered to vote because the system does not recognize our addresses,” Mandichak said.
Mandichak said when he contacted Lyon County, they “had no way to really fix it, but had me mail in a paper registration form.”
According to Clerk Staci Lindberg, “no one has made our office aware of this issue,” but then later said the paper applications was probably suggested as it would be a one-time registration where the address and registrant info could be “hands on verified” and information updated.
Lindberg said they have no way of knowing how many residents might be affected. When asked if the county was going to reach out to the new builds to let residents know they may be affected by this issue, Lindberg said postcards had been mailed to the county at large.
“We sent out 14,000 cards requesting voters to check their registration as well as put it in all sample ballots mailed,” Lindberg said.
One positive, Lindberg said, is that the county gets most of the new addresses and voter registration from the DMV when residents update their licenses or register their vehicles, decreasing the number of people who may be affected.
“We try to catch all addresses ASAP, but until we know of the street or issue we can not address [it],” Lindberg said. “We have 52,000 plus voters to inform and make sure they have election information, so anyone who does have an issue we need to know about ASAP. It really helps our office serve our base better.”
To check if you are registered to vote, please visit: https://www.nvsos.gov/votersearch/
If you receive information about your address not existing, first, please check whether or not your information was entered correctly.
If the issue still persists, please reach out to the Lyon County Clerk’s Office immediately at CTLyon@lyon-county.org or go to the office in person at 27 S. Main St. in Yerington.
Those who wish to vote in person will also have the opportunity to register in person on election day at the voting booth.
