Cause for concern?

What issues the ACLU of Nevada says it observed on Election Day, plus... We're approaching turn two in the story of the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix.

What improvements organizers say they've made ahead of the second race, that's this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

On Election Day, the ACLU of Nevada says it deployed its largest team ever to observe polls in all of the state's 17 counties.

So what did the civil rights organization observe of note?

Joining us now for that is Athar Haseebullah, Executive Director of the ACLU of Nevada.

Welcome back.

-Thanks for having me.

-Before we talk about what was observed, I want to run this tweet by you from someone on X.

This was Caroline Medina, who, after you announced this organization's move to have all these poll observers in place, wrote, quote, We need the nonbiased National Guard to watch our polls, not people in the state that have an agenda.

How would you respond to that?

(Athar Haseebullah) Well, like to Caroline or anybody else, I would say that I'm not exactly sure what that agenda looks like.

We sue Republicans.

We sue Democrats.

We sue nonpartisans.

We go after everybody.

All we care about is the preservation of civil liberties and civil rights.

But from my vantage point, we need more observers in the state, not less observers.

And so if Caroline or anybody from X, including any of the number of bots that are probably out there, decides to humanize and come make an appearance at a polling site and be an observer, I encourage it.

We had over 500 observers statewide on Election Day.

75 of those were attorneys, and we had all 17 counties under observation for the first time.

We've never had observers in all 17 counties.

Now, who were the people that we're observing?

All these folks are volunteers.

They reach out from all different places.

Some of them are law students, some of them are lawyers, some are civil rights advocates.

Some of them are folks that don't necessarily agree with us, but wanted to be part of a volunteer observation program.

So they ended up signing up on our website, and we had that open about three to four months before the election.

We require every one of our observers to take and complete a training so that you can know what the rules are so that you don't end up exacerbating tensions.

That's not the point of observation.

It's not to see an issue on the ground and to start screaming and yelling.

We have protocol for how we deal with things.

-Do you require that they identify what party they belong to?

-No.

And the reason why is, from our vantage point, it doesn't really matter.

I think that if people want to engage in partisan observation, both the RNC and the DNC had observers out.

Now, the numbers of observers they had out were not the same as ours, obviously, and I don't know that they had someone in every county.

I didn't see any of those numbers.

But if you want to engage in partisan observation, you know, folks are welcome to do that and sign up through their party.

For folks that want to engage in nonpartisan observation, that's what we like to do, to make sure if there's an irregularity or there's something that's occurring, there's violation of the law, those issues are flagged.

What we can do from there: One, if it's an issue the same day, we can work with clerks or with the Secretary of State to address those issues; two, if it's a more systemic issue, we can potentially work on policy changes to be able to address those in a holistic way that end up leading to long-term results so we don't have to see those issues moving forward.

-And when you said that the RNC and DNC had poll observers but not in the same numbers, you mean less than what the ACLU-- -Oh, yeah, I know I got a couple calls early in the morning because they had showed up at a few sites, and I know they had one or two observers there.

We had seven.

The goal was not to have that many observers there the entire time, but there was an influx of people who wanted to participate in the work, participate in observation.

I think the one challenge that we have that we need to deal with structurally when it comes to observation, though, is we need greater areas and opportunities for people to observe in larger numbers.

Right now, in many of the sites, the observation was limited to three observers: a nonpartisan observer, which is our observers, a Democrat, and a Republican observer.

I don't think that's actually the best way of doing things.

It doesn't make sense to do it that way.

And certainly I know why they do it that way, in terms of limiting the number of folks there, because I think they're concerned.

Election officials are concerned about people who are saying they're observers not acting like-- not necessarily acting like observers.

We should be able to allow for more than three people at all of these locations.

It should be, in my opinion, you know, probably 5 to 10 times that amount.

There's nothing wrong with that.

And allow people in and allow them to record their notes and take that back.

-What issues were reported?

-The most common one was the wearing of campaign T-shirts within the 100-foot electioneering zone.

I-- not exaggerating, I think I received a complaint every five minutes on Election Day.

It was nonstop, to the point where I had to tell some of the observers, yes, we're aware.

Part of that was-- and to be specific about it, the reports we received overwhelmingly were in Clark and Washoe County and in Nye County, as well, that folks wearing Trump T-shirts were in line to vote, and election officials were not telling them to do anything about it.

Now, my understanding is the guidance that those election officials received was, Attempt to resolve an issue, but if you can't, don't allow that to interfere with somebody's ability to vote.

So more often than not, we get a complaint in, nothing's done, that person ends up able to vote, and then they leave.

I think it raises questions not about whether or not there needs to be greater enforcement, per se, of that rule, but whether or not we just need to do away with the rule.

If we're going to run into an issue every five minutes on Election Day about someone wearing a campaign T-shirt, if that's the only element of electioneering, maybe it needs to be reconsidered.

-What about Nye County?

What happened there?

-Oh, our favorite county.

Nye County perpetually engages in poor planning, in my opinion.

So around 5 o'clock, we received an alert.

Mind you, there had been more than one issue with Nye County during the pendency of the election.

We received an alert that the line was about 3 - 3 1/2 hours long, and it was wrapped around the building.

We received pictures and videos from our observers there.

It was moving at a snail's pace.

About 2 1/2 hours our observers timed from the time somebody entered into the line to the time somebody left.

Nye County uses paper ballots very heavily.

And so part of the reason for that from our vantage point was that this process ends up taking longer.

They ended up running out of paper ballots at some point as well, left to go get more.

They only had three voting machines at their primary voting site in Pahrump.

So it ended up taking quite a bit of time.

-Were people asked if they wanted to use the voting machines?

-I'm not sure if they were asked.

My understanding was you, as a voter, were the one who would be requesting to use the voting machine, because they were reliant, so heavily reliant on paper ballots.

But my understanding from my conversation subsequently was that part of the reason for the delay was because they were slower in processing same-day voter registrations.

And you know, I think that raises additional concerns for us is that if Clark County and Washoe County are able to expeditiously handle those same-day voter registrations, why does it take so long in a county that's so much smaller.

But from our vantage point, if we're talking about speeding things up and getting things done on time, there's multiple ways of doing it.

But this notion that, that paper ballots are somehow better and more secure than, you know, electronic voting machines, I would argue, has been dispelled over and over.

I think that the majority of Clark County users that ended up voting in person, they were using electronic voting machines.

It wasn't some sort of, you know, wide rigging by the, by the Democrats to somehow have Donald Trump ultimately elected President, but, certainly here in Nevada, winning Nevada's votes as well.

So I don't know that that notion carries any weight anymore.

I think the Raiders, I should say Allegiant, had 92 voting machines.

Pahrump had 3.

-Have there been any allegations of voter fraud?

-Oh, there's always going to be allegations of voter fraud.

It's only getting worse.

I think if you get on X right now, it's almost extreme.

But I think the odd part about this dynamic right now is it's not just coming from the right anymore.

It's coming from folks on the left right now as well.

I have seen both sides in the last week argue that the election was rigged.

I have seen posts from folks who have been viewed as election deniers here in Nevada that have not believed in the veracity of our election system here arguing last week.

Those who are conservatives have argued that the subsequent votes that came in were rigged in favor of Jacky Rosen, and Sam Brown was a victim of election rigging, where most Democrats have responded and said, you know, There's no circumstance in which we would want Donald Trump to be President and Rosen elected to the Senate.

It would be flipped in that case.

Now I've seen it on the left, where there has been-- there's been significant chatter online and arguments by many to say that Elon Musk and Starlink has flipped votes or results in the other direction.

So we're seeing it both ways.

I don't know that that's something that's going away.

I think certainly there's narratives out there about election fraud, but I think that the claims are deeply misguided when we look at actually what the results were and the momentum behind, sort of, lack of confidence in our election systems isn't specifically because of the way the election is administered.

-Well, and we spoke about that off camera.

The delay in results does lead some to distrust them.

But what you're talking about are people claiming that votes are being flipped?

This has nothing to do with mail-in ballots being received after a certain number of days.

-Yep.

-Is there any way that the ACLU of Nevada will recommend that this delay in results be aided in any way?

-Well, look, I think it's important to lay out what the actual facts are.

If you hear certain folks talk about this issue, you'd be under the impression that Nevada is last in the nation and we're the only ones without results and we don't have results timely.

And in fact, the Arizona Secretary of State put out a list on Friday of all of the states that were still counting ballots, right?

And it was more than a dozen.

We have results that still haven't been called in the U.S. House, and we're, what, a week out of the election?

All of our races have been called.

So I know that folks want results in a quicker fashion, but I don't know that the timeline is the biggest issue.

I think what we are realizing right now is during this cure process there's a couple issues that I think do take priority ahead of getting results instantly, primarily because the other element that's associated with it are a lot of the races in Nevada are close.

These are races that are decided by a point or less.

And so you run into scenarios where I know folks want things done very, very quick.

And really, when folks say it's Election Day, it's not election results day.

Part of the reason for that is that's not happening necessarily anywhere in the same fashion, and it's why a week out, we have decided House results in a slew of states.

-We had also talked about the curing of votes, the verification of signatures that is needing to take place.

This is happening across the country.

Last topic I want to get to is about Esmeralda County.

What happened there?

-My understanding is that there was one precinct that had 70 votes.

Esmeralda is not a large county.

I think there's 700 total potential voters there, if my math is correct there.

But there is one precinct, I believe, that had about 75 people that were registered to vote.

45 people had already cast a ballot, and Congressional District 4 was actually left off of those ballots.

Now, the odd part about that dynamic, and I think the Secretary of State has laid out what their approach is, which is to refer it to the U.S. House to make a decision whether or not anything needs to be done.

The vote total is not dispositive.

It wouldn't change an outcome, because the margin is significantly wider.

But it is problematic that it certainly got left off.

I think it's going to end up raising additional questions about how this happened.

I don't-- -And who's in charge of overseeing those ballots before they're available.

-You know, one thing I would encourage candidates to do when the sample ballots are actually released is for candidates and their campaigns to actually do assessments of this.

So much is left to outside groups or the Secretary of State.

You know, if you're running a campaign, do your diligence.

Make sure every vote that should be out there is out there.

And I recognize that not every candidate has the ability to do it.

Certainly that's a, that's an error that shouldn't have happened.

It probably should have been caught sooner as well, and not in realtime.

-Do you know who is responsible for having looked those over and approving them?

-Generally, my understanding is clerks are the first line of review, and Secretary of State, second.

There's going to be errors that pop up, but when the errors are sort of not flagged, it makes it hard to really do anything about it.

And so I understand why the approach was given.

It's a rarity.

This isn't super commonplace.

And you know, it's unfortunate that it happened, because regardless of who those individuals ultimately ended up voting for and regardless of whether or not the outcome was dispositive, every vote should count regardless of the who and the why they voted for that person.

-Athar Haseebullah, ACLU of Nevada, thank you so much for joining Nevada Week.

-It's my pleasure.

Thanks.

-Worldwide attention will soon be on Las Vegas for year two of the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Thousands of fans, celebrities, and F1 team members are arriving the third week of November for this event, and locals still have several questions after last year's race, ranging from traffic concerns to understanding F1's economic impact here.

And here to answer those we welcome Lori Nelson-Kraft, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs for the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Lori, welcome.

-It's great to reconnect, Amber.

-It is so nice.

I want to start broadly.

And for those who question the impact of this event and whether it is worth it for all the work that is required, is it worth it to Southern Nevada?

What do you say?

(Lori Nelson-Kraft) I say it is a spectacular fan experience, and it put Las Vegas on a world stage in a way it never experienced before.

LVCA even said that Race Week publicity alone that was generated last year for Las Vegas was six times the amount Las Vegas typically receives in a given year.

-Wow!

And that will ultimately end up in what, more visitors unrelated to this event?

-Not only F1 fans, but it's an opportunity for Las Vegas to have an international stage in a way that it continues to want to grow its international visitation.

Whether it's by broadcast or bringing in visitors from around the world, it kind of two-prong achieves a lot from a tourism standpoint.

Even if you're watching that race in Singapore or in Europe, to see Las Vegas, to see its amenities and offerings and see the beauty that is the world's number one destination helps to generate tourism for years to come.

-What are the key improvements from last year to this year?

-So many.

Let's start from a local perspective with the circuit installation.

We reduced the circuit installation 65% over last year, and so we believe locals have seen a dramatic improvement in what that work has been.

It's primarily been overnight.

We have found solutions to lessen the burden.

We have, thanks to LVCVA, an employee mobility program kicking in Race Week to ensure that all the hospitality employees can get to their shifts.

We have made Formula 1 more accessible for everyone.

If you want to come to the race, there's expanded ticket offerings from single-day tickets to general admission, so a whole ladder from a pricing standpoint.

But we also are introducing a free fan experience the two days during Race Weekend.

Friday and Saturday, from 10 to 6 p.m., we are offering locals and visitors alike the opportunity to see, feel, and touch the thrill of F1, learn more about the sport.

It's across the street from Wynn Las Vegas.

And making it free and accessible for everyone to be part of is a big win.

We put 70,000 free tickets out in the universe, and half of them were taken by locals.

And we're thrilled over that.

And so that's another improvement.

And so those are just some of the things that we're seeing in the evolution from inaugural year.

-The fan experience that you talked about, the NFL does something similar for Super Bowl, but they charge, unlike F1 is doing.

And you had talked about the necessity of making that emotional impact with locals.

Among locals are employees.

It sounds like, to me, there is a plan in place for every employee who works on the Strip that's not going to have to battle the same amount of traffic.

What does that look like?

-Well, first of all, it's important that we take care of our workforce.

It's important that we acknowledge the local community needs to get in and around the community during Race Week, and we also want to make sure it's a great experience for our visitors who get here.

So making sure all of our hospitality workers can be on time and get to their shifts easily was really important, and LVCVA helped us solve that Wednesday through Sunday morning with a park-and-ride solution, and we're really pleased about that.

And so that's really important.

In addition to that, for the past six to eight months, we hold hundreds of stakeholder meetings, from large forums to individual corridors along the circuit, to make sure we're communicating and we're addressing their concerns and we're listening.

And the circuit buildout came with an enormous amount of feedback from everyone that really played into how do we solve and improve?

A lot of coordination with Clark County, their Public Works Department, Business Licensing, the county manager's office, the commissioners.

Everyone has really been invested together with Metro and so many other agencies in the planning and coordination to be able to host an event of this magnitude.

And so we're grateful for those partnerships, the collaboration, but it is-- there are a lot of moving pieces in order to do that.

And I'd say the last thing that has been exceptionally helpful in the circuit installation is we stood up an interactive website week by week so people could plan if they were going to be in and around the circuit to know if there was any circuit work that was taking place that would alter their commute in any way.

We continued with our twice weekly texting program in partnership with the county to provide realtime information to plan for the week ahead.

We believe communication is vital to helping everyone understand what's happening.

And you know, we hope that some of these programs that have been in place, and we've seen from anecdotal feedback, have been great improvements as we moved into year two.

-So what about the businesses that claim last year the route either shut off business entirely to them or the traffic significantly impacted customers' ability to get to their business?

Will they have those same issues this year?

-Well, we listened to all those businesses in and around the circuit.

We took feedback from the community, and we adjusted our plans as we worked with Clark County.

And you saw several of it throughout.

Now that the circuit is pretty much fully installed, you saw a 65% reduction in what that impact has been, making it a lot easier for the commuters.

The reduction in the temporary vehicular bridge that is on Flamingo between Las Vegas Boulevard and Koval was reduced by 50%, it was placed on the south side of the street, access is maintained into all those businesses, and so that was really important.

And we've met with all those businesses, and we meet-- -Some of whom are suing you.

-Correct.

I can't speak to 2023 and some of that pending litigation, but I can share with you that in good faith, we continue to meet with all the businesses along the circuit, whether virtually and in person, and keep them apprised and give feedback and make sure that they're prepared.

We even prepared customized maps for the 30 businesses in and around the circuit so they knew during the road closures what we refer to as "hot track."

They knew their ingress and egress and specific details so that as they went to talk to their employees, their vendors, their guests, or tenants, they could push out and use those tools.

And we really want to be good partners.

We're invested in Las Vegas.

We've got a team of 100 local folks who are helping us stand up the race and nearly a couple thousand seasonal employees as well.

We live here, we're proud to be part of Las Vegas, and we want to do right by the community.

-Are there any issues that simply cannot be resolved?

One that I thought of was, because of the timing of this race, it being so late, people aren't going to probably go to a show beforehand.

They may have a late dinner and then go, but how do you impact or help the shows, for example, the entertainment industry on the Strip?

-Well, the three nights that make up the three-day ticket that are part of the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix experience are five-hour experiences.

There's 19 other hours in the day to enjoy all Vegas has to offer.

And you know, we are using this race to drive tourism and to expose everyone to Las Vegas, and there is plenty of offerings and amenities that are available to all of our visitors who come.

-Okay.

Initially, Formula 1 was asking that Clark County contribute some money for the road repairs that were needed to make this happen, about $40 million for infrastructure.

Where does that stand now?

-I was surprised to hear that that is still lingering.

Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix funded-- it was actually 35 million, and that was for the paving project.

And we have taken that responsibility, and that has been long paid for.

-That's a big deal!

-Absolutely.

-Okay.

So just so everyone knows, F1 has paid for that?

-Yeah.

And you know what?

The County Commission, when we did a presentation update to them in August, Commissioner Gibson noted that in his remarks, that he too felt like that information wasn't out there.

And he wanted to clarify because it was a lingering issue.

We appreciate the opportunity for you to share that with your viewers.

-What about TV licensing fees?

I mean, will people be able to go to different locations on the Strip, or even downtown, and watch this?

I know that in the past, there were bars concerned about the price of what they may be charged in order to broadcast that from their venue.

-So the, the race itself is on ESPN.

Anyone can watch it.

Where licensing comes into effect is throughout the race circuit, we have our fan zones.

There are several organizations that have gone into licensing rights to show a watch party.

And in order to use our name, the event name, you do have to enter into an agreement with us.

But you can flip on your TV, you can watch it.

But if you start charging for a party, using the event name, all that, that's where we look to organizations to enter into a licensing agreement.

But we have gifted our license.

City of Henderson will be showing-- we are in partnership with them in Clark County to have a watch party down on Water Street, and we have lent our name and given licensing rights to that.

We are hosting a watch party for the members of Nellis Air Force Base, and they are going to be having a watch party.

And within there, we've given them swag and some food and beverage and actually a pair of tickets to raffle off for next year's race.

So we want everyone to be able to watch the race, whether it's in person or in the comfort of their own home or at a watch party.

-Last thing, the economic impact of this.

What did this event last year mean to the state?

-So we put out $1.5 billion in economic impact.

Of that, you can take out 600 million that you probably won't see when we produce this year's economic impact report, because that was a one-time buying land and constructing a 300,000 square foot facility that is year round, called Grand Prix Plaza.

But last year's race generated $77 million throughout the state.

And as that trickled down, 22 million of that went directly to the schools.

We understand that it is the single largest event that has been hosted in Las Vegas.

It even surpassed the Super Bowl and its taxes that it generated to the state.

So that is kind of a snapshot of the taxes alone coming back into our community.

-Benefiting the state of Nevada.

Lori Nelson-Kraft with Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix, thank you for joining Nevada Week.

And thank you for watching.

For any of the resources discussed, go to our website, vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

And I'll see you next week on Nevada Week.