Nevada: Federal appeals court dismisses lawsuit challenging election worker protection law | Gabby Birenbaum and Eric Neugeboren/The Nevada Independent

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has dismissed a challenge to a Nevada law to protect election workers, likely ending the effort to decriminalize their harassment. In a unanimous opinion released Monday, the three-member panel of judges unanimously dismissed the suit brought by four former poll and ballot counting observers, who were represented in the case by Sigal Chattah, the new interim U.S. attorney for the District of Nevada, the state’s highest federal law enforcement officer. The ruling comes one year after federal Judge Cristina Silva blocked the lawsuit over a lack of standing. Chattah appealed the decision one month later. Read Article

Nevada: A bipartisan mail ballot bill? It’s not as crazy as it sounds. | Eric Neugeboren/The Nevada Independent

Anything is possible in the Nevada Legislature — including a bipartisan bill on the politicized issue of mail ballots. The top Democrat and Republican in the Assembly are joining forces on a bill that would require all sample ballots to be sent to voters before mail ballots are distributed. An amendment also would provide a clearer timeline for when mail ballots must be sent to voters. Mail ballots are among the most politically fraught topics in the Legislature, as Republicans have long opposed universal mail ballots and the counting of certain mail ballots postmarked on or before Election Day but received after. Democrats, meanwhile, have led efforts to protect existing mail ballot laws largely adopted during the COVID pandemic. Read Article

Nevada: Proposed legislation sparks debate over accountability by election workers | Haajrah Gilani/Las Vegas Sun News

A proposal being considered in the Nevada Legislature that calls for election workers to be charged with a felony for failing to perform tasks in a timely manner has received pushback from those staffers tasked with running elections. Senate Bill 100 comes from state Sen. Skip Daly, a Washoe County Democrat, who told the Sun he was working with counties and city clerks to answer concerns they expressed during a hearing late Tuesday for the proposal. Nevada law mandates that any officer or other person tasked with election responsibilities who “willfully neglects” their duty or “willfully performs” it in a way that works against state laws is guilty of a category E felony and eligible for one to four years in prison. Daly’s legislation would expand that definition and make it so that a person with election responsibilities who fails to perform their tasks “in a timely manner by the applicable deadline” is also eligible for a felony charge. Read Article

Nevada attorney general revives 2020 fake electors case | Rio Yamat/Associated Press

A slate of six Nevada Republicans have again been charged with submitting a bogus certificate to Congress that declared Donald Trump the winner of the presidential battleground’s 2020 election. Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford announced Thursday that the state’s fake electors case had been revived in Carson City, the capital, where he filed a new complaint this week charging the defendants with “uttering a forged instrument,” a felony. The original indictment was dismissed earlier this year after a state judge ruled that Clark County, the state’s most populous county and home to Las Vegas, was the wrong venue for the case. Read Article

Nevada’s top election official eyes changes to speed up ballot counting | Eric Neugeboren/The Nevada Independent

Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar on Thursday admitted that he was frustrated by the pace of election results this year, and that he would be working with legislators to determine ways to speed up the counting of ballots. Aguilar said many of the ballot counting difficulties likely stemmed from staffing levels in Clark and Washoe counties, despite efforts by both counties this year to accelerate ballot processing. Aguilar has been complimentary of how the state’s elections ran this year — and he reasserted Thursday that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud — but he acknowledged there is room for improvement. Read Article

Nevada breaks signature curing record; 9,000 ballots tossed because of invalid signatures | Eric Neugeboren/The Nevada Independent

Nevada broke its record for signature cures completed of mail ballots, as well as for votes that were not counted because of ineligible signatures in this month’s election. The signatures on more than 23,000 mail ballots were successfully cured in this month’s election — meaning election officials confirmed an eligible voter was linked to a ballot with a signature not matching the one in the state’s voter file, and the issue was resolved. Meanwhile more than 9,000 mail ballots had inadequate signatures and will not be counted. The total number of amended signatures exceeded the combined cures completed in 2020 and 2022, the only other general elections with widespread mail voting. In all, about 1.5 million votes were cast in the general election. The votes that were not counted mostly came from registered nonpartisans, while about 40 percent of the successfully-cured ballots were from Democrats and about a quarter coming from Republicans. Read Article

Nevada Supreme Court rules non-postmarked ballots can be counted within 3 days of election | Eric Neugeboren/The Nevada Independent

The Nevada Supreme Court has ruled that election officials can count mail ballots with no postmark received as many as three days after Election Day. In a decision Monday, five of the high court’s seven justices disagreed with the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) interpretation of the law at the center of the lawsuit and determined it would not be in the public interest to change election procedures this late in the cycle. Justices Douglas Herndon and Kristina Pickering agreed with the ruling but disagreed with the majority’s interpretation of the law in question. The ruling upholds a Carson City judge’s denial of the Republicans’ request in August to stop the counting of these ballots. It is the latest defeat in the barrage of lawsuits filed by state and local Republicans related to Nevada’s mail ballot laws and voter roll maintenance, none of which have resulted in GOP victories, though one is pending a ruling and the others are in various stages of appeal. Read Article

Nevada GOP asks poll observers to ensure voting machines are operating accurately – critics say it invites harassment against workers and sows distrust | Eric Neugeboren/The Nevada Independent

Republicans in Nevada are asking poll observers to complete a more than 15-item checklist on topics such as ensuring that voting machines are sufficiently secured and not connected to the internet, even though the poll watchers are not legally entitled to receive much of this information. State law does not explicitly give observers the right to seek much of the information on the checklists, such as inspecting the security of voting machines, receiving the serial numbers of the machines and accessing voting data at a polling location. Because election workers are not obligated to provide much of this information to observers and have many other responsibilities, critics worry that not doing so could increase harassment of election workers. “I am very concerned that this could happen, in terms of them following these individuals and harassing them and creating an unsafe environment based on this information,” said Sadmira Ramic, a voting rights attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Nevada. Read Article

Nevada unveils new top-down voter registration and election management system | Tabitha Mueller/The Nevada Independent

Nevada election officials announced the implementation of a new voter-registration and election management system last week that they said will speed up the state’s release of election results and reduce voter registration errors. Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, a Democrat, and Washoe County Registrar of Voters Cari Ann Burgess showed reporters the new system and its processes Wednesday. Every county will use the program in the 2024 November general election, though Clark County, which implemented the program before the 2024 election cycle, will merge its voter registration database with the state in 2025. “Nevada runs some of the most safe, secure and accessible elections in the country,” Aguilar said. “[This system] only enhances those safeguards and increases our transparency.” Read Article

Nevada Supreme Court declines to wade into flap over certification of election results, for now | Scott Sonner and Gabe Stern/Associated Press

Nevada’s Supreme Court declined Tuesday to wade into an electoral controversy despite pleas from the state’s top election official and attorney general after one county initially voted against certifying recount results from the June primary. The Democratic officials wanted the justices to make clear that counties have no legal authority to refuse to certify election results. The high court said in a ruling that the matter was moot since the Washoe County Commission’s original 3-2 vote against certification was later nullified when it re-voted the following week to certify the results. Read Article

Nevada rolls out new voter database in an effort to boost voter trust ahead of election | Yvette Fernandez/Nevada Public Radio

The 2020 election denial claims led to widespread questions about election security. Since then, states such as Nevada are taking steps to make sure voters know what is being done to protect the balloting. The most important effort is educating voters about voting procedures and safety measures in place to protect the integrity of the voting process, according to Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar. At an August bipartisan town hall in Las Vegas, Aguilar said the state will implement a new system this month, aimed at streamlining the process by combining every county’s information into one statewide system. Read Article

Nevada county won’t hand-count in 2024, but some officials support doing so in the future | Gabe Stern/Associated Press

County commissioners in rural northeastern Nevada decided Wednesday not to submit a plan to hand-count votes in November, but some officials said they support implementing it in future election cycles in the latest debate over voting machines across the Western swing state. Elko County commissioners said it was far too close to the election to implement such a plan — parts of which they acknowledged did not meet state guidelines for hand-counting. Instead organizers and some officials said they supported lobbying state officials to allow more methods of hand-counting than what are currently outlined in those guidelines, which they say are too arduous, in the future. Resad Article

Nevada: Federal judge dismisses Republican challenge over counting of post-Election Day mail ballots | Gabe Stern/Associated Press

A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by national and state Republicans that sought to bar Nevada from counting mail ballots received after Election Day. A state law passed by Democrats in 2021 allows election officials to tally ballots received by 5 p.m. on the fourth day after Election Day, as long as the envelopes are postmarked before the end of Election Day. The judge rejected Republicans’ assertions that this was unconstitutional and violated federal law, as well as their claim that the rule gave Democrats an unfair electoral advantage and diluted the power of Republicans votes. Read Article

Nevada: Washoe County Commission reverses course, acknowledges election certification mandatory | April Corbin Girnus /Nevada Current

Two of the three Washoe County commissioners who refused to certify the results of two primary election recounts reversed course Tuesday, acknowledging that certification is mandatory and that delaying the process could potentially subject them to criminal prosecution. The Washoe County Commission, in a 4-1 vote, certified the results of the two primary election recounts, which resulted in only minor changes to total vote counts. Commissioners had rejected certification 3-2 on July 9, though they had approved the original canvas of the election 3-2 earlier in June. Commissioner Clara Andriola — who voted to certify the original results, then voted against certifying the recount, then asked that the board reconsider that vote — said in prepared remarks that the Washoe County District Attorney’s Office had provided “clarifying direction on the nature of our duties to canvas the election returns.” She also acknowledged that the secretary of state and attorney general had quickly petitioned the Nevada Supreme Court to intervene and force certification. Read Article

Nevada: Refusal to certify Washoe County election results meant to sow distrust, advocates warn | April Corbin Girnus/Nevada Current

Washoe County’s rejection of the official results of two primary election recounts that yielded few changes from the original count should be seen as an attempt to spread misinformation and sow distrust in the democratic process, say voting advocates. Washoe County Commissioners on Tuesday voted 3-2 against certifying the results of an official recount of two races from Nevada’s June 9 primary. The board’s three Republicans, Commissioners Michael Clark, Jeanne Herman and Clara Andriola voted against certification while Democratic Commissioners Alexis Hill and Mariluz Garcia voted in favor of certification. Clark and Herman have now twice voted against certifying the results of Washoe County’s primary election. The duo also voted against certifying the county’s original canvas two weeks ago. Andriola voted for certification of the original canvas but joined her Republican peers in opposition on Tuesday. Read Article

Nevada county votes against certifying recount results, a move that raises longer-term questions | Gabe Stern/Associated Press

Commissioners in Nevada’s second most populous county on Tuesday refused to certify the results of two local recounts from last month’s primary, a rare move that has potential implications for the presidential race in one of the nation’s most important swing states. The three Republican members on the five-member Washoe County Board of Commissioners voted to reject the results of recounts in one race for a commission seat and another for a local school board seat. What happens next is unclear. The county elections department and district attorney’s office declined to comment, along with the state attorney general. A request for comment from the secretary of state was not immediately returned. The rejection of the recounts and questions over how to handle it raised concerns about what could happen in November if a local commission refused to certify the presidential election results. Read Article

Nevada: Judge tosses initial GOP lawsuit alleging voter rolls insufficiently maintained | Eric Neugeboren/The Nevada Independent

A federal judge on Tuesday approved a motion to dismiss a GOP-led lawsuit alleging that Nevada had insufficiently maintained its voter rolls, but will allow for an amended complaint addressing standing issues to be re-filed with the court. After a two hour hearing in Las Vegas, U.S. District Court Judge Cristina Silva ruled that the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Nevada GOP lacked standing to file the lawsuit. She also ruled that there was no way for the state to resolve the alleged issues when the lawsuit was filed, owing to federal guidelines on the timing of amending voting roll programs to remove ineligible voters. The groups have 14 days to amend their complaint. Read Article

Nevada’s Plan To Expand Internet Voting Concerns Election Security Experts | Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press

Election security experts have expressed concerns about the risks associated with electronic balloting, which is being expanded in Nevada to increase voting access for Native American tribes, including the Walker River Paiute Tribe. These experts warn that electronic ballot returns can be intercepted or manipulated, posing a significant security threat. Despite these risks, the new system allows tribal members to receive and return ballots electronically, aiming to address historical voting barriers faced by tribal communities. Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group, notes that while electronic ballot return is limited, its expansion could undermine public confidence in elections due to the potential for digital interference. Read Article

Nevada elections official confronts escalating threats in battleground county | Sara Murray and Kim Berryman/CNN

In the Washoe County elections office, everyone is new to the job. Cari-Ann Burgess – the top elections official in the county – is the third registrar of voters there in just four years. She’s been leading the office for less than six months. Her deputy, Andrew McDonald, has been on the job for a few weeks. Media production specialist George Guthrie started less than nine months ago. Even Noah Autrey, the office assistant, started full-time less than a year ago. With 100% staff turnover since the last presidential election, Washoe County is emblematic of a nationwide trend. States are gearing up for the 2024 election while grappling with an election worker exodus driven by the complexity of the job, as well as threats and harassment, experts say. Election worker turnover has been ticking up steadily over the past two decades, but the pace has increased in recent cycles. Since 2020, at least 36% of local election officials have left the job, according to researchers from the Bipartisan Policy Center and the University of California, Los Angeles. Read Article

Nevada Supreme Court denies appeal of conservative activist seeking to oust county election official | Associated Press

A conservative activist who embraced unproven election fraud claims has lost an appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court in his bid to oust a top county election official and others. The high court on Wednesday upheld a lower-court judge’s earlier dismissal of Robert Beadles’ lawsuit, which claimed that Washoe County’s registrar of voters, the county manager and a county commissioner violated the state constitution by failing to respond to his complaints of fraud. “Taking all the factual allegations in the complaint as true and drawing every inference in favor of Beadles, he can prove no set facts that would entitle him to relief as pleaded,” the Supreme Court ruled. Read Article

Nevada: GOP sues state over late mail-in ballots | Hillel Aron/Courthouse News Service

The Republican Party, along with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, filed a lawsuit against Nevada and its two largest counties over their policy of accepting mail-in ballots arriving up to four days after Election Day.  Nevada’s Secretary of State defended the state’s election practices, emphasizing their transparency and accessibility, while the Republicans expressed concerns about the disproportionate impact on Republican candidates and voters. Read Article

Nevada Secretary of State Wants More Election Funding After Presidential Primary “Glitch” | Matt Cohen/Democracy Docket

Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar is calling for more federal funding for elections after a coding “glitch” in the vote tally in the state’s Presidential Preference Primary in February. An unknown number of voters were erroneously marked down as having voted when they didn’t in fact vote. The glitch was fixed and no extra votes were counted, but the incident prompted a letter from U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), chairman of the Committee on House Administration, to Aguilar expressing concern over what led to the glitch. In response to Steil’s letter, Aguilar sent a letter on March 22 asking for Congress to provide more federal funding for elections to ensure similar glitches don’t happen again. Read Article

Nevada: Republican National Committee sues Secretary of State over voter registration records | Mark Hebert/Courthouse News Service

The Republican National Committee, Nevada Republican Party, and a registered voter have jointly filed a lawsuit against Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar and other election authorities, alleging that several counties in the state maintain outdated or inaccurate voter rolls, thus violating the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. Nevada’s attorney general countered the GOP’s claims, arguing that the data used for assessment was flawed and offering alternative datasets for comparison. Read Article

Nevada county election official in charge of controversial 2022 hand-count plan resigns | Gabe Stern/Associated Press

Mark Kampf, the Nye County Clerk in Nevada, known for presiding over a hand-count in the 2022 midterms amid false claims of election fraud, is resigning effective March 31, according to a letter received by the county. The reasons for his resignation remain unclear, with Kampf declining to comment. He assumed the position after the county commission unanimously voted to switch to hand-counting amidst conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, leading to the resignation of the previous clerk. However, Kampf’s approach to hand-counting differed from the original plan, with machines remaining the primary counting method. Read Article

Nevada Secretary of State says coding issues to blame for errors in online voter history records | Tabitha Mueller/The Nevada Independent

The Nevada Secretary of State’s office addressed coding errors in files used for nightly updates on voter registration history, clarifying that the mistakes did not affect the presidential primary election results. The errors stemmed from missed steps in uploading voter registration data, particularly related to voters who did not return mail ballots, but did not impact vote tabulation. Read Article

Nevada Secretary of State defends Dominion voting machines | Mark Robison/Reno Gazette Journal

The Nevada Secretary of State has sent an email to county clerks and registrars in the state defending the state’s Dominion ImageCast X (ICX) voting machines after University of Michigan computer science professor Alex Halderman testified in a federal trial recently in Georgia about the vulnerability of those machines. Nevada uses the ICX as a direct recording electronic DRE system while Georgia uses them as ballot marking devices (BMDs). Nevada also uses a different voting system version. Previously they had been using a Nevada-specific version (DVS 5.12) and last year they upgraded to DVS 5.17, the EAC certified version Dominion developed after a 2021 security analysis co-authored by Halderman. The concern about the encoding of voter selections into QR code that has been an important issue in the Georgia tria is moot in Nevada since no Printed Vote Records are produced by the ICX when used as a DRE. Further arguments about physical and cyber security measures that would require “unlimited access to the voting machines” for the attacks assumes no insider threat. Read Article

Nevada Republicans can’t decide between a primary or a caucus – so they’re doing both | Joe Sommerlad/The Independent

Nevada Republicans are set to host both a caucus and a primary as part of their unique electoral system, driven by a 2021 bipartisan bill requiring political primaries if multiple candidates vie for a race. While Nevada Democrats have embraced this change, Nevada Republicans insist on maintaining their traditional caucus alongside the state-run primary. Despite attempts to challenge the primary requirement in court, the party succeeded in ensuring that delegates would only be awarded through the caucus, making the primary more of a symbolic exercise. Read Article

Nevada Secretary of State tries to get ahead of caucus-caused confusion – without criticizing caucus | April Corbin Girnis/Nevada Current

Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar on Wednesday offered little direct criticism of the Nevada Republican Party for rejecting the state-run presidential preference primary in favor of hosting their own party-run caucus. But he defended the state’s primary election system, calling it more accessible to voters than a caucus held over less than three hours on just one specific day. Read Article

Nevada: Elections head in Washoe County resigns, underscoring election turnover in key state | Gabe Stern/Associated Press

The turnover among election officials in Nevada continues as Washoe County Registrar of Voters, Jamie Rodriguez, abruptly resigns less than a month before the Feb. 6 presidential preference primary. In her resignation letter, Rodriguez expressed a desire to pursue opportunities outside of elections and spend more time with family in preparation for the crucial 2024 election cycle. This adds to the eleven of Nevada’s 17 counties that have seen turnover in top county election positions since the 2020 election. Rodriguez’s departure comes after an extensive audit in Washoe County revealed issues of rapid turnover and understaffing that hindered election processes. The state has faced resignations due to threats, lack of support, and challenges in implementing changes like the universal mail ballot system. Read Article

Nevada GOP ‘fake electors’ plead not guilty to felony charges in Las Vegas | Gabby Birenbaum/The Nevada Independent

Six Nevada Republicans, including state party Chair Michael McDonald, have pleaded not guilty to felony charges related to their attempt to pledge the state’s electoral votes to Donald Trump after the 2020 election. The charges, brought almost three years after the defendants participated in a fake signing ceremony, include offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument. The charges carry a minimum sentence of one year and a maximum of four to five years. Read Article