Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Dems: Lawsuit over Nevada primary voting plan about making sure voters can safely participate

Nevada Caucus 2020 Early Voting

John Locher/AP

Paper ballots sit on a table at an early voting site at the East Las Vegas library, Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020, in Las Vegas.

How to best conduct Nevada's June primary elections during the coronavirus pandemic is the now focus of a lawsuit pitting the Democratic Party over the state's chief election officer, Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske.

Cegavske announced earlier this month that the primary election in June would be held almost entirely through mail-in ballots sent to all active voters due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Under the plan, there would be one in-person polling location per county.

But Democratic Party officials say the change isn’t acceptable because the distance between the polling site and the surrounding population could disenfranchise thousands of voters. And, they say, only sending ballots to registered voters — those whose address is on file — would leave out potential voters.

In response, the Democratic National Committee and the Nevada State Democratic Party filed suit last week in Clark County District Court over Cegavske's plans for conducting the June 9 primaries.

The Democrats' lawsuit came shortly after Wisconsin officials refused to expand remote voting options for their state’s Democratic presidential primary, triggering widespread condemnation from Democrats for risking voters’ health by requiring them to vote in person.

Democratic officials though, in regard to the Nevada lawsuit, say they are less concerned ideologically with a specific type of voting — in person or through mail — but want to ensure that voters have safe, accessible options.

“If we have only one location (per county) and we create a bottleneck, it’s just going to create problems with social distancing guidelines that the state and the federal government recommend,” said Daniel Bravo, a lawyer representing the Nevada State Democratic Party.

The lawsuit aims to increase the number of polling locations to reflect counties’ population and geographic size and to suspend enforcement of Nevada’s voter assistance ban, which Democrats say would allow “community organizations” to assist in ballot delivery and collection. It also aims to require mail ballots to be sent to all voters, rather than just “active voters,” the term used for voters with a correct address on file. An inactive voter is one whose file does not have a correct address.

The secretary of state’s office would not comment due to the pending litigation, but it did forward a statement Cegavske made earlier in the week when Democrats released a letter calling for her to change the guidelines. She said sending mail ballots to inactive voters would increase costs and said Democrats were asking her to ignore state law around issues like ballot harvesting.

“The decision to designate the 2020 primary election as an all-mail election was not made lightly,” Cegavske said. “The policies put in place for the primary election are supported by all 17 county election officials and exist to ensure state and local election officials can properly and lawfully administer the election while protecting the right to vote and ensuring the health and safety of voters and election workers during this unprecedented time.”

As of March, there were 1,614,872 active voters in the state, out of 1,869,471 total voters. Among Republicans, there are 64,448 inactive voters, while Democrats have 97,800.

John Weber, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, accused Republicans of using the pandemic to suppress voters.

“Every state should follow the guidance of health professionals and work to find ways to expand access while keeping Americans safe,” Weber said. “This pandemic has shown exactly how dangerous the GOP’s voter suppression agenda is, and we will continue doing everything we can so every eligible voter can safely participate in the election.”

But the nonpartisan Election Data Science Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reports that the “safest conclusion” to draw is that extending mail voting options likely increases turnout more in primaries than it does in a general election. They call the possible increase “modest.”

Nevada Democrats, along with their national counterparts, said the suit was being brought on behalf of multiple Nevadans, including a student displaced from university housing who cannot easily obtain the ballot sent to his university address.

“Under the current plan, same-day registrants could have to choose between voting in person at a single, overcrowded polling location in each county — creating long lines like we saw in Wisconsin — or forgoing their constitutional right altogether,” said William McCurdy, Nevada Democratic Party chairman. “Our recommended changes will make it possible for every eligible voter to have the opportunity to participate and do so safely.”

Bravo said that the dearth of in-person voting options means that voters who do not have a mail-in ballot may just decide not to vote if their site is too far away.

Primary elections in Nevada traditionally don't see high turnout. In the 2018 primary, 329,863 active voters cast a ballot, almost 23% of the total active voter rolls. In the 2016 primary, 240,213 active voters cast their ballot, a little over 18.5% of the total active voter rolls.

Multiple Nevada Democratic lawmakers and officials have publicly expressed concern over the Cegavske's plan for the primary, including U.S. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen, former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Lt. Gov. Kate Marshall.

“There is indisputable evidence that the process proposed by the Nevada secretary of state will adversely impact communities of color. While I applaud a vast expansion of voting by mail, it cannot be the only voting method offered in a state where 90% of the voters choose to vote in person and it cannot be administered in a way that limits the ability for Nevadans to vote safely,” Reid said in a statement.

Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, on Friday expressed his support via social media for more polling locations.

“The Wisconsin election has shown us that reducing the number of in-person polling locations creates long lines and unsafe overcrowding,” Sisolak tweeted. “Providing multiple locations along with the opportunity to vote by mail will allow for more effective safety protocols for both Nevada voters and poll workers.”

The primary will see no intraparty contests, but Bravo said Democrats wanted to be sure a fair voting process was locked in place for any possible future elections.

“We just want to make sure that the process is clear and it runs smoothly in case it needs to be repeated again in the general,” he said.

As of Friday, Democrats were working to get a preliminary injunction in the case. They are also seeking to fast track the case, as the primary is a little over a month and a half away.