Richard Brian / Special to the Sun
Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford takes questions during an interview at his office at the Grant Sawyer Building Monday, Nov. 25, 2019.
Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020 | 3:21 p.m.
Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford called for patience as Nevada’s vote count continued today, brushing aside threats of litigation from President Donald Trump’s camp.
“We knew that the process would take time, but this process is working,” Ford said. Elections officials should be commended for ensuring an accurate count, he said.
Trump’s campaign in Nevada, meanwhile, announced plans to file a lawsuit to stop the counting of “improper” votes in Clark County over unspecified reports of “irregularities.”
Elections officials have not reported any widespread irregularities.
Ford called the threatened lawsuit a last-ditch attempt at influencing the election outcome, noting that voter fraud is exceedingly rare.
“I will leave the hysteria and the hyperbole to those who are attempting to undermine this process,” Ford said. “What I'm going to do is to defend the process — one that is legal, lawful, safe and secure and that's going to guarantee every lawful vote that has been cast is going to be counted.”
In Nevada, Democrat Joe Biden is running ahead of Trump by 11,438 votes, with about 190,150 ballots still to be counted, state officials said.
Most of the outstanding ballots — about 90% of them — are in Democratic-leaning Clark County, officials said.
Clark County elections officials said it will be Saturday or Sunday before all the ballots already received are counted.
This year’s count is taking longer than usual because of the dramatic increase in mail-in voting amid the coronavirus pandemic, Ford said.
For the first time, ballots were mailed to all eligible voters. More than 600,000 voters statewide cast mail-in ballots, according to the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office.
Annette Magnus, executive director of Battle Born Progress, said she and other representatives of the left-leaning organization have been observing the counting process for two weeks.
“We are making sure that every vote is counted,” said Magnus, who joined Ford on a Facebook Live livestream.
“It's going to go slowly. The numbers are going to come in slowly because they are counting them meticulously,” Magnus said. “Be calm, take a deep breath… and trust this process.”
