Monday, Nov. 2, 2020 | 1:50 p.m.
President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened legal action to stop states from counting every ballot in the 2020 election.
And, once again, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford said he is ready for a fight, setting up what could be a legal scuffle in the immediate aftermath of Election Day.
Trump told reporters Sunday in North Carolina that he plans to bring legal challenges late on Election Day, seemingly to end the counting of mail-in ballots in key swing states.
“We’re going in the night of — as soon as the election is over — we’re going in with our lawyers,” Trump said in Charlotte.
Ford responded to a tweet by PBS Newshour correspondent Yamiche Alcindor outlining the news, stating simply, “We’re ready.”
Trump’s campaign has made it a point in the lead-up to Tuesday to plant doubt in any results that come in after Election Day.
Trump in Charlotte called it “terrible” that the results won’t be known Tuesday night.
He also accused Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak of interfering with the vote totals, without offering any evidence.
Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, not Sisolak, is the top election official in Nevada.
Election results are almost never fully available the night of the election.
State officials always count past election night, and counts aren’t official until days after the election. Votes can be counted in Nevada until Nov. 12.
If a state is called on election night, the information comes from news organizations examining available turnout and exit polling data to determine if a candidate still has a way to win the state.
The counts do not end after a state is called by a news organization.
In Nevada, a large pool of results should come soon after the polls close, as election officials could begin counting results on Oct.19, though none are made public until after polls close.
Nationally, the final results could take a while to verify.
Pennsylvania, a state Trump won in 2016 and that has been polling slightly in favor of Biden throughout the campaign season, may play an outsized role in the wait.
The state has been ranked by polling website FiveThirtyEight as the most likely tipping point in the race, meaning the Electoral College win could come down entirely to Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania election officials cannot start counting ballots until 7 a.m. on Election Day.
About 2.4 million votes already have been cast in Pennsylvania.
Trump’s campaign filed suit in Nevada multiple times since state Democratic lawmakers passed legislation to send mail-in ballots to every active voter automatically.
In August, the campaign filed a lawsuit to stop the rollout of that legislation, though the focus of the lawsuit later narrowed to only cover certain provisions. That lawsuit was thrown out by a federal judge who said the campaign failed to show how they could be harmed by the law.
On Oct. 23, the Trump campaign and Nevada Republicans filed a lawsuit to stop the counting of mail-in ballots in Clark County. The campaign lost that lawsuit Monday.
At the crux of Republicans’ argument was that Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria didn’t receive proper approval in April from Cegavske for his plan to accommodate election observers.
They sought to freeze all mail-in ballot counting until elections officials allowed “meaningful” oversight of ballot processing and let observers challenge mail ballots.
Trump campaign cochair Adam Laxalt has said an immediate appeal to the state Supreme Court is being considered.
Ford, in a statement after the Trump campaign lost the lawsuit, said that Trump’s “deliberate efforts to undermine Nevada’s elections have failed yet again.”
“He has made every attempt to control the outcome of this election without any regard to the health and safety of residents or of Nevada’s state laws designed to protect the sanctity of the ballot,” Ford said in a statement.
