LAS VEGAS (AP) – The Trump campaign and Nevada Republicans on Friday asked a state judge to stop counting the Las Vegas-area mail-in ballot, alleging that “meaningful oversight” of signature verification is impossible in most and most of the state. Democracy-Tilt County.
Nov. Less than two weeks before the election, a lawsuit was filed in a state court claiming that observers at a busy counting center were not allowed close to workers and machines to see if the second and third steps were valid. Should be denied.
Judge James Wilson in Carson City declined to give an immediate order to close the count, but scheduled a hearing Wednesday following a request.
Amid concerns raised by President Donald Trump over issues including voter registration, voter lists and the mail-in ballot period, U.S. The battle between the court battles in is advanced.
“The concern is whether the rolls are clean and properly registered voters get the ballots, sign them and mail them back,” Trump said for President Nevada’s co-chairman Adam Lakshalt. “We want signature verification to be part of the process and the ability to challenge mail-in signatures.
In the 2000 presidential election, Laxmalt included memories of a legal battle, the decision of which ended in mid-December against Bush. Gore was taken by the Supreme Court.
But vote-by-mail “wasn’t really an issue until someone started tweeting about it in the president’s year,” said Amber M. R. Cranolds, head of the Home Institute’s nonprofit National Vote, a broad advocate for mail-balling.
Trump has repeatedly taken to Twitter to question the widespread use of mailed ballots, suggesting he encourages fraud.
“I don’t think Clark County is doing anything different than the counties of other states,” said McCranolds, Denver’s former election chief. He said the Las Vegas area is among the many people who are now using computers with software to compare signatures, before turning voting into human-verified questions.
Florida, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Nebraska, Montana, Kentucky, Oregon, California, Georgia and its home state, including Colorado, have been expanded to “vote-by-mail identical red and blue states.”
The lawsuit alleges that Clark County Registrar of Waters J. Gloria failed to obtain proper approval from Secretary of State Barbara Segavaske in April for his plan to include observers. Until that is done, the “voting process …
It also complains that Clark County rejected the GOP offer to install video monitoring devices at election headquarters.
Former Attorney General of Nevada Lakshalt said in an interview that it appears that not enough ballots have been rejected.
“It’s hard to believe that there’s only a 1% rejection rate,” said Lakshalt, citing state election figures acknowledging that more than 98% of the 190,000 mail ballots received in Clark County to date are valid. He noted that once the signature is verified, , No campaign will challenge that vote.
U.S. According to the data collected by the Election Assistance Commission, 201. In, Nevada counties reported that 1.6% of absentee ballots were rejected. At the national level, about 1% of absentee ballots were rejected that year.
State Democrats called the case a “plain and simple” attempt to suppress the vote in the state’s most diverse county. The U.S. counts Clark County’s population at more than 31% Hispanic, 13% Black and about 10% Asian American.
In a statement, the party cited a lawsuit rejected by a federal judge in September seeking to block state law enacted under the epidemic emergency measure to allow every active registered voter in Nevada to send a mail-in ballot. Legislators controlled by Democrats passed legislation at the behest of the party. It was signed by the Democratic governor in August.
A federal judge in Las Vegas said Republicans and the Trump campaign failed to show how they would be harmed by the law. The verdict was not appealed.
Throughout this election, Trump and Republicans have resorted to baseless attacks to undermine confidence in Nevada’s electoral integrity, the Democratic Party said in a statement.
Las Vegas-area voter and volunteer count observer Fred Cross is the main plaintiff in the lawsuit, which was filed in the Nevada capital because the Republican Secretary of State is the defendant.
Segavsky’s spokeswoman Jennifer Russell said she could not comment on the active lawsuit.
More than 70% of the approximately 1.75 million active voters in Clark County State. There are more than 50,504,000 registered Democrats, compared to about 111,000 Republicans and 300,000 party members.
County Registrar Gloria said in an interview before the lawsuit was filed that the voting process in the Las Vegas-area is safe, fair and non-partisan, and observers are being included even amidst the rules of social distance.
He said it would be inappropriate to allow the party to install and control the camera and keep the recording itself, and would violate state law prohibiting public photos or videos at the counting center.
Gloria added that changing operations now would be challenging. Preliminary voting in Nevada began Oct. 17.
Ballots are rejected during every election, even in the best of circumstances, and authorities say at the national level that problems could escalate this year as millions of voters cast their ballots for the first time because of coronavirus changes Came.
Some ballots are usually not counted because they arrive too late in the mail, voters forget to sign them or the signatures do not match on file in the local election at fee.
A large number of unaccounted ballots can be used to cast doubt on the election.
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This story has been modified to show that the Secretary of State is not a plaintiff, but a defendant.
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The report was contributed by AP reporters Sam Metz in Carson City and Christina Cassidy in Atlanta. Metz is a corps member of the Weak National Service Program for the Associated Press / Report for America Statehouse News Initiative, which puts journalists to report on issues covered in local news.
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