Nevada Preps Boys Player of the Week: Silverado’s Donavyn Pellot

Opponents have a hard time defending Silverado with all the weapons it has on offense.

In the Skyhawks’ 57-17 win last Friday over Coronado in the 4A state semifinals, it was senior running back Donavyn Pellot who went off. He scored five rushing touchdowns, compiled 160 all-purpose yards and picked off a pass. For his efforts, Pellot was named the Nevada Preps Boys Athlete of the Week.

“It felt good,” Pellot said. “I wasn’t focused on (the individual stats). I was really just trying to help my team, help them win. And take what the defense gave me and just play confidently.”

With the win, Silverado is back in the 4A state title game with a chance to repeat as state champions. Pellot said all offseason he and his teammates were focused on doing everything necessary to defend their title.

“For us to put in all that work all summer and fall camp, it feels great that our work has paid off,” he said. “We’re not finished. We have one more game.”

Pellot sees himself playing with more confidence this season. He credits the knowledge gained from his time spent watching game film as one of the reasons why he’s grown as an all-purpose player for Silverado.

In September, Pellot committed to UCLA. While he is locked in on his final high school game, he is looking forward to living a dream of his to play college football.

“It feels great to get to live that dream,” Pellot said. “For all that hard work to pay off, it feels great to be at such a big program like UCLA. It’s really fulfilling.”

Contact Alex Wright at [email protected]. Follow @AlexWright1028 on Twitter.


Trump falsely claims Nevada and Arizona election officials ‘want more time to cheat’

Former President Donald Trump claimed without providing evidence that there’s fraud going on in Nevada and Arizona because election officials are still counting ballots.

“Clark County, Nevada, has a corrupt voting system (be careful Adam!), as do many places in our soon to be Third World Country,” Trump said Nov. 10 on his social media platform Truth Social. Trump was referring to Nevada’s Republican candidate for Senate, Adam Laxalt.

Trump also said: “Arizona even said ‘by the end of the week!’ — They want more time to cheat! Kari Lake MUST win!”

Lake is the Republican candidate for governor in Arizona. At the time of Trump’s post, Laxalt was ahead of Democratic incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, and Lake was trailing Democratic candidate Katie Hobbs. Trump endorsed both Lake and Laxalt.

Trump’s claim ignores that election results take time to count. The duration of vote counts will depend on a variety of issues, including the number of mail-in ballots, the closeness of the results and the laws about mail ballot processing. Just because some results are not yet known doesn’t mean there is cheating going on, as Trump suggested.

Nevada officials following steps outlined by state law

Officials in Clark County, Nevada’s most populous county, called Trump’s claims “outrageous” and “misinformed.”

“We could not speed up the process even if we wanted to,” the county said in a statement on Twitter.

The tweet said that under Nevada law, all mail-in ballots postmarked on or before Election Day and received before 5 p.m. Saturday can be accepted and processed. Election officials must check every signature on mail ballots to ensure they match records. If they don’t, voters have until 5 p.m. on Monday to correct these ballots.

The state also must process provisional ballots — votes cast by people who register to vote at the polling place whose names cannot be found on a voter registration list or who have some other registration-related issue. According to Clark County, this process, which is meant to ensure that people don’t vote twice, cannot be completed until the Nevada secretary of state’s office provides reports this Wednesday.

Comments such as Trump’s get “certain people very fired up and they’re convinced that we are doing things that are inappropriate or against the law. And that’s just not the case,” Joe Gloria, Clark County’s registrar of voters, said at a midday press conference Thursday.

The margins in Nevada’s races, especially for the Senate, are extremely close, so media outlets cannot project winners until enough votes are reported. Projections from media outlets are not official results, either; those come later from election authorities.

Maricopa County swamped with early ballots on Election Day

In Arizona and Nevada, workers may begin opening mail ballots and checking signatures before Election Day, but that’s not so in every state.

Maricopa County in Arizona had a record 290,000 early ballots dropped off on Election Day.

Like other mail ballots, these ballots also must be processed, and signatures must be checked. Reviewing large volumes of ballots requires time.

If election officials identify an issue with a voter’s signature, voters have until 5 p.m. local time Nov. 16 to correct the problem.

“There’s a lot of work involved in this. We’re going as fast as we can, but accuracy matters,” Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chair Bill Gates, a Republican, said Thursday on CNN.

Gates has said that although media outlets have projected winners in certain states, that’s because the margins between candidates in those states were large enough, not because vote counts were complete.

Our ruling

Trump said that election results in Clark County and Arizona are not yet known because those places “want more time to cheat.”

Election results take time to count.

The number of mail-in ballots that need processing, the margins of the contests and the state’s laws for counting the votes all influence when results are reported.

That vote counting might take longer is not proof of fraud or cheating.

Trump’s claim lacks evidence and ignores established legal procedures for vote counting.

His claim is wrong and ridiculous. We rate it Pants on Fire!

Maria Ramirez Uribe is an immigration reporter at PolitiFact. The Review-Journal has partnered with the Florida-based fact-checking organization for the 2022 election cycle to bring readers accurate information about politician’s statements and advertising.

Clark County Nevada election update

Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria was expected to hold a news conference at 11:30 a.m. today to discuss the progress in counting remaining mail-in ballots for the 2022 election.

Saturday is the deadline for the county to receive all mail ballots that were postmarked by Election Day.

The county has been steadily tabulating mail ballots that have arrived at the county’s election headquarters in North Las Vegas daily, working toward a Tuesday deadline to have all votes counted. The Clark County Commission is expected to hold a special meeting on Friday to certify the results of the 2022 election, following a report from Gloria.

The outcome of several close races is still undetermined, including the race for U.S. Senate between Democratic incumbent U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Republican Adam Laxalt.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Contact Colton Lochhead at [email protected]. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.


Clark County Nevada election update on ballot count — WATCH LIVE

Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria is holding his daily press conference to provide an update to the county’s ballot counting progress.

Clark County, the state’s most populous county and Nevada’s most Democrat-leaning hub, has the largest share of outstanding mail ballots that need to be counted; most are ballots that were dropped off by voters at ballot drop boxes Tuesday.

Several statewide races are separated by just a few thousand votes, including the nationally watched U.S. Senate race between incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto and Republican Adam Laxalt. With Democrat John Fetterman winning the Senate race in Pennsylvania and Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly leading by a sizeable margin in Arizona, Nevada’s Senate seat could decide the balance of power in the chamber for the second half of President Joe Biden’s first term.

As of Friday morning, Laxalt’s lead over the incumbent had shrunk to less than 9,000 votes, or less than 1 percentage point, and the mail ballots that have been counted in Clark and Washoe counties have heavily favored Democratic candidates.

In the governor’s race, Republican Joe Lombardo currently leads Democrat Gov. Steve Sisolak by roughly 28,500 votes, or 3.1 percentage points.

And in the secretary of state race, Democrat Cisco Aguilar now leads by 5,400 votes over Republican Jim Marchant, who has been a driving force behind the conspiracy-fueled push to eliminate electronic voting machines in Nevada and elsewhere and went as far as to question his own primary victory in June.

On Thursday, Gloria said the county still had “over 50,000 ballots that need to be counted,” and said his staff will work through Friday’s Veteran’s Day holiday as well as the weekend if needed to count the remaining ballots.

Meanwhile Washoe County, the state’s second largest population hub, has roughly 23,000 ballots remaining to report, barring any additional mail ballots that may trickle in Friday and Saturday.

Those mail ballots slowed down significantly Thursday, with Clark receiving just 626 ballots from the postal service, while Washoe received about 200.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Contact Colton Lochhhead at [email protected]. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter. Contact Jessica Hill at [email protected]. Follow @jess_hillyeah on Twitter.


Democrats lead narrowly in Nevada constitutional races

RENO — Early election results show Republicans leading in races for lieutenant governor, treasurer and controller, although many mail ballots have yet to be counted.

As of about 1:45 a.m. Wednesday, Republican Stavros Anthony was ahead of Democratic rival Lisa Cano Burkhead in the race for lieutenant governor, 50.9 percent to 44.7 percent. Democratic incumbent state Treasurer Zach Conine had fallen behind Republican Las Vegas Councilwoman 47.1 percent to 46.6 percent. And Republican Andy Matthews had garnered 51.3 percent to Democrat ex-Assemblywoman Ellen Spiegel’s 45 percent in the race for state controller.

Cano Burkhead, who was appointed to the position by Gov. Steve Sisolak in December, is a former teacher and principal in the Clark County School District and had little prior political experience before her appointment. Cano Burkhead has said she wants to promote outdoor recreation in the state.

Anthony, on the other hand, has served on Las Vegas City Council since 2009 and previously served on the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents. In 2020, Anthony lost his bid for the Clark County Commission by just 15 votes, which he has claimed was the result of a “stolen” election.

Nonpartisan healthcare lobbyist Trey Delap, Independent American Bill Hoge and Libertarian professional fighter Trujillo Tachiquin are also in the race for lieutenant governor.

Conine, who previously worked as a casino manager before being elected to the position in 2018, has touted his record throughout the campaign, pointing to the state receiving its highest credit rating and increasing access to unemployment benefits post-pandemic.

Conine has been endorsed by some Republicans, including former state Republican Party chair Amy Tarkanian.

Fiore originally ran for governor before switching to the treasurer’s race before the June primary. A former state legislator, the Republican has served on the Las Vegas City Council since 2018.

Fiore’s home was raided by the FBI last year as part of a campaign finance violation investigation. She and fellow Councilwoman Victoria Seaman got into a physical altercation at City Hall in January 2021, in which Seaman’s finger was broken. Seaman later sued the city, but an outside law firm’s investigation concluded both women participated in the fight.

Libertarian businessman Bryan Elliot and Independent American Margaret Hendrickson are also listed on the ballot for treasurer.

Spiegel and Matthews faced off in the race for controller after outgoing Catherine Byrne declined to run for re-election.

Spiegel served in the Assembly from 2008-2010 and again from 2012-2020. A former projects manager at a number of companies, Spiegel has proposed a program that would provide provisional business licenses for individuals who can’t afford them.

Matthews, who formerly led the conservative policy advocacy group Nevada Policy Research Institute, is serving his first term in the Assembly. If elected, he has said that he wants to increase transparency in the office by expanding the detail provided in the office’s annual report.

Libertarian candidate Jed Profeta is also in the race for controller.

An unknown number of mail ballots have yet to be counted. Final election results will likely not be available for several days.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Contact Taylor R. Avery at [email protected]. Follow @travery98 on Twitter.


Nevada Senate, governor races’ betting odds

Betting on elections isn’t allowed at U.S. sportsbooks. But on Election Day, here’s a quick glance at the betting odds at United Kingdom and offshore books on the Nevada Senate and governor races.

In one of the closest U.S. Senate races in the country, Republican challenger Adam Laxalt is a -225 favorite at BetOnline over incumbent Democrat Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (+160).

This means that bettors have to wager $225 to win $100 on Laxalt, who was as high as -350. Gamblers have to bet $100 to win $160 on Masto.

At London-based Betfair sportsbook, Republicans are -250 favorites to win the Nevada Senate race and Democrats are +175.

In the race for governor, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, the Republican nominee, is a -300 favorite at BetOnline over Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak (+200). Lombardo was as high as -400.

The Republicans are massive -4,999 favorites at Betfair to take control of the House of Representatives. Bettors have to wager $4,999 to win $100.

Contact reporter Todd Dewey at [email protected]. Follow @tdewey33 on Twitter.