Nevada GOP waits for ruling on lawsuit against Clark County
Las Vegas (KSNV) — Nevada Republicans are waiting for a judge to issue a ruling on a lawsuit asking Clark County Registrar of Voters, Joe Gloria, to stop counting mail-in ballots until observers are given an adequate opportunity to observe the way the voters’ signatures on the envelopes are being matched with signatures on the ballot inside.
“We don’t get a chance to challenge that match, whether we think those two signatures actually looked alike,” said former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who is now working with the Nevada Trump campaign. “We were told that the signature verification system would be the one thing that would save a brand new giant mail-in process from any potential fraud.”
Laxalt also claims that based on information during Wednesday’s hearing, machines being used in Clark County to confirm a signature match have been configured in a way to allow more ballots to be approved. “What we have found in Clark County is that this machine, which has pushed through 30% of all mail-in votes, that the standard was unilaterally lowered by their own testimony to make sure that enough signatures went through,” Laxalt said.
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The Nevada GOP was expecting a ruling from the Carson City judge by Thursday afternoon. Laxalt said they initially received an email from a court employee informing them a ruling was imminent. According to Laxalt, “we received an email in the late afternoon that said the judge had reached an opinion, but then asked all parties to agree for the opinion to be released, and we were told we had five minutes. If we didn’t agree in five minutes, then the opinion would not be released until Monday.”
Ultimately, Laxalt says that’s what happened. But in the meantime, he says it will allow thousands of additional mail-in ballots to be separated from their envelopes, making any meaningful legal recourse nearly impossible. “Our ability to challenge them are disappearing, and in the next three days there could be another 10,000 to 100,000+ mail-in ballots that will be gone forever,” Laxalt said. “They will be counted, and the voters of Nevada or any parties will not be able to challenge them.”
Clark County has argued that the COVID-19 pandemic has made it too risky for election observers to interact with vote counters. According to Clark County Attorney Mary Ann Miller, “we don’t allow them [observers] to talk to a worker, we don’t allow them to look over the shoulders in this day of coronavirus.”
Asked Friday for comment on the GOP lawsuit, Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria declined, saying only, “we’ll do everything to make sure we get all ballots that we’ve received, count.”
