Raul Sabido, a volunteer observer, takes notes as he watches a Clark County Election Department worker scan mail-in ballots, Tuesday Oct. 20, 2020.
Saturday, Oct. 24, 2020 | 12:28 p.m.
Hours after the Nevada Republican Party and President Donald Trump’s campaign filed a lawsuit to block mail-in ballot counting in Clark County on Friday, a Carson City judge denied their request.
Republicans filed a lawsuit in Carson City district court seeking to stop ballot counting in Clark County until a “meaningful” election observation plan is put into place. Carson City District Judge James Wilson denied a temporary restraining order on Friday, but has scheduled an evidentiary hearing for this coming Wednesday.
Despite claims of election fraud and lawsuits by Republicans, which started this summer when the Nevada Legislature expanded the election to include mail ballots because of the pandemic, critics of the process have yet to produce evidence backing their allegation that the county is violating state election law.
On Twitter, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford characterized the suit as an attempt by the GOP to suppress voting. Ford’s office represents Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a defendant in the lawsuit along with Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria.
“Again I say, we will always protect the right to vote, and we won’t let it be suppressed,” Ford tweeted.
In their suit, the Republicans allege that Gloria did not receive proper approval in April from Cegavske for his plan to accommodate observers. The GOP also raises complaints that a Republican offer to install video monitoring equipment at the Clark County election headquarters was rejected.
Citing election data showing more than 98% of the mailed ballots in Clark County had been accepted, Trump campaign co-chair Adam Laxalt in an interview Friday said that it’s “hard to believe” that only 1% of ballots had been rejected so far.
That number is only a sixth of a percentage less than the total number of absentee ballots rejected in Nevada in 2016 and on par with the percentage of rejected absentee ballots nationwide that year.
Clark County officials say the claims raised in the suit are misleading and inaccurate, contending that observers have been granted access to areas where the public is allowed. Countering a GOP claim that it was denied access to areas where ballots are processed and counted, the county said the party actually was barred from entering a call center where voting officials contact voters and discuss personal information with them. The county contends that state law bars public admittance to such call centers.
Republicans contend that Clark County has adopted more lax verification standards than other counties, which will lead to the votes in the smaller counties becoming “diluted.”
But state Democrats counter that the suit is an attempt to tip the election to Republicans, who are significantly outnumbered in terms of active voters in Clark County, the home of the state’s largest body of voters. Clark County has 1.23 million active voters in the county’s borders; Washoe County comes in a distant second with almost 295,000 active voters.
“This lawsuit from Trump and Republicans is nothing more than an obvious attempt to impede record-breaking momentum in Clark County, the most diverse county in the state. Throughout this election, Trump and Republicans have resorted to baseless attacks to undermine confidence in Nevada’s election integrity,” Nevada Democratic Party Chair William McCurdy said in a statement. “So it’s no surprise that now, as Democrats hold a significant mail ballot lead in Clark County, Republicans are making one more desperate play.”
This is not the only attempt from Republicans to push back on expanded mail-in voting. Democratic lawmakers in a special legislative session this summer passed a law that would automatically send out mail-in ballots to all active voters. The Trump campaign and state Republicans filed a lawsuit to stop the law’s rollout, but the case was thrown out by a judge.
Trump and Republicans nationwide have attacked the legitimacy of mail-in balloting and other voter access measures similar to those adopted by Nevada. But voting officials and other experts say those concerns are unjustified — they argue that mail balloting has been conducted safely for decades and will be safe this year.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
