Nevada

Nevada senators blame USPS for mail ballots that arrived at wrong office | Ricardo Torres-Cortez/Las Vegas Review-Journal

U.S. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen are demanding the U.S. Postal Service explain how 34 Nevada mail ballots from June’s primary elections arrived at the wrong location weeks after Election Day, leading to the cancellation of those votes. The Democrats requested a formal investigation in a Thursday letter addressed to Postmaster General David Steiner and USPS Inspector General Tammy Hull. “To ensure these issues are corrected before the November midterm elections, we urge USPS to immediately initiate this investigation and share its results with Congress,” the letter said. “We also urge USPS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to evaluate whether an independent OIG investigation is warranted.” The senators gave the postal service and the inspector general’s office August deadlines to brief them. Read Article

Nevada: Storey County clerk-treasurer cracks top 10 in ‘most dangerous election deniers’ list | Matthew Mondschein/Nevada Current

Election denier and Storey County Clerk-Treasurer Jim Hindle placed eighth in a “America’s Top 10 Most Dangerous Election Deniers” list published by All Voting is Local, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for free and fair elections. Hindle, alongside Nevada State Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald, James DeGraffenreid, Jesse Law, Shawn Meehan and Eileen Rice were indicted by Nevada Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford in 2023 for their role in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election which he lost. The case was dismissed over jurisdictional issues, but then revived on appeal, and another evidentiary hearing is scheduled for April 10. All six have pleaded not guilty. Storey County voted for Trump in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, each by generous margins. Hindle was elected as clerk-treasurer in the county in June, 2022. As an elected official in charge of overseeing elections, Hindle must be “duty-bound to his constituents first and follow the Constitution and state law, not the whims and conspiracy theories of the president,” said Kerry Durmick, Nevada State Director of All Voting is Local. Read Article

Nevadans gear up to protect election from federal interference | Matthew Mondschein/Nevada Current

The Trump administration’s threat to take control of elections in several states and its refusal to rule out immigration agents at polling stations not only threatens the integrity of this year’s elections, but also amounts to voter suppression and intimidation, election advocates say. Silver State Voices, the ACLU of Nevada, All Voting is Local, and Nevada Immigrant Coalition are sounding the alarm about overtures coming from Washington, which Silver State Voices Executive Director Emily Persaud-Zamora said are “designed to suppress and discourage us from participating actively in democracy.” All Voting is Local Nevada State Director Kerry Durmick said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s refusal during a Feb. 5 press briefing to guarantee that Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agents won’t be at polling stations spurred the groups to action. Read Article

Nevada: Supreme Court mail-in-ballot counting case could affect Nevada elections | Ricardo Torres-Cortez/Las Vegas Review-Journal

An upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case could shake up future elections for Nevada and 15 other states that allow post-Election Day mail-ballot counting. Earlier this month, the higher court agreed to hear the case out of Mississippi that’s challenging a state law that permits mail ballots postmarked by Election Day there to be tallied upwards of five days after polls close. Nevada gives those ballots up to four days to arrive, and up to three days for the ones without a postmark. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the deadlines last year, denying an appeal by the Republican National Committee President Donald Trump’s campaign and the Nevada Republican Party. The party argues that the practice of delayed counting undermines election integrity and trust in the process. Read Article

Nevada’s recent cyber attack shows the importance of shoring up security for election systems | Kerry Durmick/Nevada Current

On August 24th, Nevadans woke up to several key government sites having gone dark – taken offline by a massive cyber attack. The cyber attack ended up crippling several critical services like the Department of Motor Vehicles for over a week, and the full extent of the data that was compromised is still unknown as state officials, the Cyber Security Infrastructure Administration, and the FBI continue their investigation. However, one critical state service – the Secretary of State’s voter registration information – remained untouched. This was due in large part to a 2021 law that mandated centralizing voter data into a top-down voter registration system, consolidating all counties’ voter information. The old system, which had required each county to individually track and record voter data, was a bottom-up system where counties had to manage their own lists and cybersecurity before the information was transmitted to the SOS system. In contrast, the Voter Registration and Election Management System (VREMS) requires that all counties report voter registration and election data into a single system, which allows for more uniform list maintenance and provides a more secure cybersecurity infrastructure, as seen with the cyber attack earlier this year. The change, although expensive, has resulted in a safer and more transparent system for election officials and voters alike. Read Article

Nevada’s election system stayed up during massive statewide cyberattack. Here’s why. | Kiara Adams/The Nevada Independent

The recent statewide cyberattack took down many critical state websites and services, but at least one system was not affected: Nevada’s voter registration and backend election system. That’s thanks to a 2021 law mandating that the secretary of state’s office move to a top-down voter registration system, a centralized database that collects and stores voter preregistration and registration information and is used by all 17 county clerks. The state previously had a bottom-up system, where each county individually tracked and recorded voter information, but it was long criticized for inefficiency. Several years and millions of dollars in state funding later, the new system is up and running. State officials and cybersecurity experts say the adoption follows best practices by keeping election and voter information separate from other systems. Read Article

Nevada elections official raises alarm over DOJ demand for voter data | Jessica Hill/Las Vegas Review-Journal

Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar sounded the alarm Monday on the Justice Department’s request for Nevada voter information. In a media briefing Tuesday with the nonpartisan States United Democracy Center, Aguilar, a Democrat, and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson claimed the Justice Department’s requests for voter information include sensitive personal information data that the department has no authority to access. The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division sent a letter in June to Aguilar requesting Nevada provide voter roll data and other election-related information, such as Nevada’s current voter registration list. It sent similar letters to about two dozen states. Read Article

How Nevada’s elections will change with new 2025 laws | Jessica Hill/Las Vegas Review-Journal

New laws from the 2025 legislative session aim to increase accessibility to Nevada’s elections and improve voters’ experiences. Election reform was a major focus in Carson City, though bills that sought to drastically change Nevada’s elections were blocked by the governor, including legislation to implement voter ID requirements and to allow nonpartisan voters to participate in primaries. Other bills seeking changes were successful, from requiring that sample ballots be sent before official mail ballots to disclosing campaign advertisements made with artificial intelligence. “Everything we tried to do this session has been focused on the voter experience and the voter perspective,” said Democratic Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar. Read Article

Nevada: New law will make it easier to vote on reservations | Jimmy Romo-Buenrostro/NPR

Tribes will soon be able to run their own polling locations for federal and state elections on reservations in Nevada. The change came from Gov. Joe Lombardo’s approval of Senate Bill 421 in the recently concluded legislative session. This bill was developed in response to barriers Tribal members in the state faced when trying to participate in elections. For instance, members of the Walker River Paiute Tribe, one of the two largest tribes in the state by population, had to travel over 60 miles to cast a ballot. Read Article

Nevada GOP governor vetoes voter ID bill pitched as compromise with legislative Democrats | Tabitha Mueller and Eric Neugeboren/The Nevada Independent

Gov. Joe Lombardo on Thursday vetoed a bill brought by legislative Democrats that would have required voter ID beginning in next year’s elections, meaning that voter ID’s rollout in Nevada will rely on passage of a ballot question next year. It’s a significant turn of events for AB499, the result of an apparent deal between Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) and the Republican governor. Along with requiring voter ID, the bill would have resurrected Yeager’s previously vetoed effort (AB306) to increase ballot drop box access in the days leading up to an election. The proposal, which was amended in the Senate to include voter ID, received opposition from five Senate Democrats before the Assembly agreed with the proposed changes in a voice vote. Read Article

Nevada’s bipartisan deal: Voter ID law and more ballot drop boxes | Rio Yamat/Associated Press

Facing a legislature dominated by Democrats, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo stood before Nevada lawmakers earlier this year with a message that some did not expect to go far: “Set aside partisan politics.” It was a plea that might have seemed more aspirational than realistic, given the country’s deep polarization. Yet it set the stage for one of the session’s most unexpected outcomes — a bipartisan agreement to bring voter ID requirements to the perennial battleground state by next year’s midterm elections. In a deal that came together in the waning days of the session, the Democratic-controlled Legislature approved a bill that combined a requirement for voter ID — a conservative priority across the country and something that has been on Lombardo’s legislative wish list — with a Democratic-backed measure to add more drop boxes for mailed ballots in the state’s most populous counties. Read Article

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