Campaign attorneys wanted to toss out thousands of ballots in Democrat-leaning Clark County.
A Nevada judge has struck down a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, which sought to prevent mail-in ballots from being counted in Clark County.
Clark County—which encompasses Las Vegas and is by far the most populous in the state—contains 70% of all registered voters in Nevada. It is also a heavily Democratic district, one which presidential contender Joe Biden is expected to easily carry in the upcoming election.
In its lawsuit, the Trump campaign, aided by the Nevada Republican Party, argued that conservatives could not easily or fairly observe all aspects of the final ballot count as closely as they wished. The plaintiffs had also asked that counts be recorded by video cameras.
However, Carson City Judge James Wilson discarded the complaint on Monday, ruling that the Trump campaign not only lacked the legal standing necessary to lodge the complaint but had also failed to provide any evidence of “debasement or dilution of a citizen’s vote.”
Trump’s re-election campaign, as LegalReader’s reported before, has repeatedly claimed that absentee voting is particularly susceptible to fraud—despite there being little evidence, or historical precedent, to suggest that may be true.
Wilson reiterated that stance on Monday, opining there is little reason to believe mail-in ballots will not be considered or counted as accurately as ballots cast in person.
“There is no evidence that any vote that should lawfully be counted has or will not counted,” he wrote. “There is no evidence that any vote that lawfully should not be counted has or will be counted.
“There is no evidence that any election worker did anything outside the law, policy, or procedures,” Wilson stated.
According to National Public Radio, the lawsuit had requested that Clark County Registrar of Voters Joseph Gloria immediately stop using Agilis, an electronic ballot-counting device.
But the Trump campaign’s criticism of Agilis—as with its other complaints—failed to evidence any security or software flaws which may lead to a compromised vote.
The lawsuit, notes NPR, appears to have been a last-minute ploy to prevent Nevada votes from being accurately counted, or sorted in time for the general election—the GOP only submitted its copy of the suit on October 23rd, less than two weeks before Election Day.
Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford has since praised Wilson’s ruling.
“The president’s deliberate attempt to undermine Nevada’s elections have failed yet again,” Ford said in a statement. “Today’s ruling makes clear that there is a proper procedure to observe an election that even the president must follow, and it’s most certainly a victory for the constitutional rights of all Nevadans.”
Nevada’s Deputy Solicitor General, Gregory Zunino, had earlier blasted the Trump campaign’s lawsuit as overtly political and clearly intended to suppress the state’s Democratic vote.
“Clark County is a blue county, and this is a numbers game,” Zunino said during last week’s opening arguments. “And quite frankly they would like to exclude as many ballots in Clark County as they can. They want a high rejection rate.
“They are not challenging the process in Elko County or Humboldt County or Carson City,” Zunino added, “because those are red counties.”
Sources
Judge rejects Republican efforts to halt early vote counting in Las Vegas
Nevada Judge Blocks Republican Lawsuit That Sought To Halt Mail-In Ballot Count
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