LAS VEGAS (KSNV) – Republicans filed a new lawsuit over Nevada‘s election practices, this time for allegedly accepting mail-in ballots without a postmark.
The Republican National Committee said they, the Nevada Republican Party and the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit in Carson City District Court against the Secretary of State’s office and the clerks and recorders of Clark and Washoe counties. .
The Nevada Revised Statute allows Election officials can count a mail-in ballot received after Election Day if it arrives up to four days later and is postmarked by Election Day. The vote will still be counted if a mail-in ballot is received before the third day after an election with an undetermined postmark date.
The lawsuit alleges that Nevada election officials will count mail-in ballots received after Election Day that are not postmarked, citing a comment by an assistant secretary of state for elections during an advisory committee meeting in April.
“We are committed to ensuring the integrity of Nevada’s elections and inspiring voter confidence,” Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald said in a statement. “Allowing unpostmarked ballots to be illegally counted undermines both.”
Ballots are counted at the county level and then reported to the secretary of state’s office. The plaintiffs want a judge to grant an injunction to prevent election officials from counting mail-in ballots received after Election Day without a postmark.
Former President Donald Trump and other Republicans have criticized mail-in voting, arguing without evidence that the process is used for widespread voter fraud.
It is the latest legal challenge filed against Nevada related to voting. In March, the RNC and the Nevada Republican Party sued over county voter rolls, alleging that registration rates were abnormally high in Clark and Washoe and above 100% in other rural counties.
The office of Nevada’s Democratic Secretary of State, Francisco Aguilar, responded that election officials are following federal law, which has strict guidelines on how to recall voters, and that the GOP lawsuit used flawed data to reach its conclusions.
A hearing on the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit is scheduled for Friday, June 7.
Last month, the Trump campaign and the Nevada Republican Party sued in federal court claiming that accepting mail-in ballots received after Election Day was illegal, regardless of postmark status, because federal statute provides for a single “election day.”
The Democratic National Committee filed a motion to intervene and dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that federal law only requires that a voter’s choice be issued on or before Election Day. A hearing has not yet been scheduled in this case.
The campaign of independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has also filed a lawsuit against Nevadaarguing that they received conflicting information about whether a vice presidential candidate was necessary for their petition to make it to the November ballot.
A federal judge rejected a lawsuit in April filed by conservative plaintiffs over a new state law that toughened penalties for harassing poll workers.
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