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Clerk's Biography

Lynn Marie Goya has been serving as the elected Clark County Clerk since January 2015.

Since elected, she has:

• streamlined and modernized services for her constituents, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars while reducing the office’s impact on the environment;
• opened two branch offices and a yearly “pop-up” marriage license bureau at the airport to better serve local constituents;
• worked with the legislature on numerous bills including to create a tech fund to allow the department to continually upgrade their customer service and a marriage tourism fund to help promote this legacy industry;
• expanded passport acceptance hours to meet the needs of our 24/7 service economy; and
• increased government transparency while modernizing the permanent public records over which she is in charge.

Clark County, home of the famous Las Vegas Strip, issues approximately 80,000 marriage licenses per year to couples from every corner of the world. On average, four percent of visitors come to Las Vegas for a wedding. This famous industry generates over 18,000 jobs and contributes $3.3 billion in annual economic activity.

In 2015, when Goya discovered the 20-year decline in wedding tourism, she immediately took action, working with the legislature to create a special wedding promotion fund that generates over $1 million per year. She created a public/private partnership with the wedding industry that evolved into the Las Vegas Wedding Chamber of Commerce and works closely with Las Vegas Convention and Visitor’s Authority (LVCVA) and Travel Nevada. Pre-Covid, international wedding couples made up over 20 percent of those who came to Las Vegas to marry. In 2024, knowing the importance of the international market, Goya established a partnership with UK Destination Wedding and Honeymoon Magazine and, in 2025, with the Italian SPOSI wedding magazine.

Prior to being elected, Goya was a freelance journalist who wrote for local, regional, and national publications including USA Today, Audubon, Family Life and the Boston Globe, and co-authored two Falcon Press hiking guides with her son. She is an award-winning playwright, an Emmy-nominated writer; received the Frederick L. Ryan Award for Economics; the JCPenny Golden Rule Award for community leadership; and the EMERGE Nevada 2016 Alumni of the Year.

Offices Served

• 2022 President for Nevada’s County Fiscal Officers Association (CFOA)
• 2019-2021 Board of the International Association of Government Officials (IGO)
• 2015 – present CFOA
• 2025 National Association of Government Communicators

Office Awards and Recognition:

• 2025 National Association of Government Communicators (NAGC) Communicator of the Year
• 2024 Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Las Vegas chapter Pinnacle Award for the Wedding Capital of the World 70th anniversary and 1-2-3-1-2-3 publicity efforts
• 2024 National Association of County Officers (NACo) Achievement Award for The Historical Preservation of the Wedding Capital of the World
• 2024 International Association of Government Officials (iGO) Innovator Award for Excellence in County Government
• 2024 American City & County (to team member Paula Cook) Exemplary Public Servants of the Year for Exemplary Leadership
• 2021 American City & County Crown Communities Award: Clark County Clerk Customer Service Website Redesign
• 2021 American Advertising Awards (aaf.reno) for weddings.vegas design
• 2021 iGO Excellence in County Government Award for various achievements and initiatives
• 2020 Nevada Taxpayers Association Cashman Good Government Award Finalist from for “Ensuring Marriage Integrity”
• 2019 iGO Innovator Award (Clerk’s Division) for overhauling the Marriage Officiant program to include online and in-person training
• 2019 Center for Digital Government Government Experience Award for MLIC.Vegas and online customer service improvements for national and international customers
• 2018 Nevada Taxpayer’s Association Good Government Award Honorable Mention for innovations supporting the addition of new married names to marriage certificates
• 2018 NACo Achievement Award for streamlining and standardizing the marriage officiant application process
• 2016 National Association of County Recorders, Election Officials, and Clerks (NACRC) Records Management Best Practices Award for Low-Cost Tech Innovations Save Time and Money for County Clerk
• 2016 NACo Achievement Award for Low-Cost Tech Innovations Save Time and Money for County Clerk
• 2015 Women of Distinction Award for Corporate and Government Services from the National Association of Women Business Owners of Southern Nevada (Award)
• 2015 EMERGE Nevada Alumni of the Year

Department Achievements:

• Implemented a secure online and in-person credit card processing service to reduce cash intake and allow the department to collect online order requests 24/7;
• Created a customer centric website, www.weddings.vegas, to better support our national and international customer base;
• Worked with the legislature to provide much-needed technology funds to all Nevada county clerks;
• Implemented a strategy to protect digitally archived permanent public records to secure and protect them from potential data loss or ransomware threats;
• Overhauled the marriage officiant application process and implemented a mandatory training program to ensure officiants understood their rights and responsibilities to the state;
• Streamlined the certificate filing process saving hundreds of hours of staff time;
• Reorganized the Clerk’s Office management team and created a new system for employee review and training;
• Created an online scheduler for civil marriage ceremony and passport acceptance appointments;
• Opened passport acceptance services to better serve our 24/7 local economy, offering; walk-in appointments from 8:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. 365 days per year;
• Spearheaded promotional campaigns including 70^th Anniversary of the Wedding Capital of the World celebration, Las Vegas Marries the Military, The Annual State of Wedding Tourism, “Say Yes to the UK Dress”, May as Royal Wedding Month and the Pop-up Marriage License Bureau at McCarran Airport;
• Press releases and promotions resulting in over $50 million in national and international publicity for Las Vegas weddings;
• Provide 18 years of publicly available, downloadable very clean Las Vegas wedding licenses annual databases (https://weddings.vegas/marriage-services/marriage-statistics/) available to journalists and researchers seeking real data on the demographics and statistics of who is getting married (excludes all personal identifiable fields);
• Created a Celebrity Timeline (https://weddings.vegas/celebrity-timeline/) with over 400 celebrities from 1920’s John Gilbert to Usher;