A federal judge on Tuesday approved a motion to dismiss a GOP-led lawsuit that alleged Nevada had not sufficiently maintained its voter rolls, but will allow an amended complaint addressing ongoing issues to be refiled in court.
After a two-hour hearing in Las Vegas, U.S. District Court Judge Cristina Silva ruled that the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Nevada Republican Party lacked standing to bring the lawsuit. She also ruled that there was no way for the state to resolve the alleged problems when the lawsuit was filed, because of federal guidelines on when to modify voting list programs to remove ineligible voters. The groups have 14 days to modify their complaint.
Lawyers representing the RNC and the Nevada Republican Party did not respond to a request for comment sent Tuesday after the hearing.
The ruling marks an initial legal defeat for Republican groups that have already filed a trio of election-related lawsuits in Nevada this year, including efforts to stop the counting of mail-in ballots after Election Day, as allowed by the state law, and the alleged inclusion of mail-in ballots without a postmark.
It’s also the first ruling in the nation this year on the RNC’s efforts to challenge the legitimacy of states’ voter rolls (similar lawsuits have been filed in Arizona, California and Michigan), as the national group floods courts in states undecided with demands related to electoral administration. Former President Donald Trump recently hand-picked the RNC’s new leadership team, including naming his daughter-in-law Lara Trump as the group’s co-chair.
The RNC and the Nevada Republican Party filed the lawsuit in March along with a Washoe County man named Scott Johnston, arguing that the number of registered voters in five counties was so high that maintenance of the state’s voter rolls must have been insufficient. Republicans claimed that three counties (Douglas, Lyon and Storey) have more registered voters on the rolls than adult citizens, and two jurisdictions (Carson City and Clark County) have voter registration rates that exceed 90 percent of the total adult population.
The focus of the lawsuit is the state’s adherence to the National Voter Registration Act, a federal law that governs state voter roll policies. The law largely prohibits states from removing voters from their rolls until the voter has responded to a notice and has not voted in the two general elections after the notice is served, requirements also outlined in Nevada law. .
Tuesday’s hearing largely revolved around whether the defendants in the case had standing and whether the state was given the opportunity to resolve any allegations of wrongdoing.
Silva ruled that the case did not meet this threshold, citing a federal law that prohibits any changes to voter registration programs to purge ineligible voters within 90 days of an election. The lawsuit was filed on March 18, less than 90 days before the June primary, meaning there was no relief available to the state at the time.
“Timing is everything in federal court,” Silva said. “I could not direct the state to develop and implement a program at the time this action was filed.”
The question of standing also concerns whether those who brought the lawsuit had suffered an injury.
Silva was not convinced by arguments that alleged voter registration violations had caused the Washoe County man listed as a plaintiff to suffer an injury because he distrusted the state’s elections.
Silva also dismissed existing arguments made by the Republican Party and the Nevada Republican National Committee, which had argued that the alleged insufficient maintenance of state voter lists had harmed their mission because they rely on accurate voter lists to conduct voter outreach activities. voters to elect Republicans. He sided with attorneys representing Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, who argued that these alleged damages were too broad and speculative.
Silva did not side with the GOP on all arguments, ruling that its notice of an impending lawsuit in December was sufficient even though the lawsuit filed addressed a broader range of issues.
Hearings on motions to dismiss cases are not based on the strength of the evidence, so the matter was not addressed Tuesday.
Even if Silva had rejected the motion to dismiss the case, it was almost certain that the state’s voter registration processes would not be affected before the November elections. Federal cases take months to litigate and the state is prohibited from changing its voter registration program 90 days before the election.
Despite the ruling, there may be additional challenges related to voter registration this year, albeit on a smaller scale.
A report released Monday by Protect Democracy, a nonprofit focused on combating the rise of authoritarianism, identified 11 states, including Nevada, that could be targeted by campaigns this year filed by individuals to challenge the states’ voter rolls. .
Laws regarding voter registration challenges differ between states. In Nevada, an individual can challenge another person’s right to vote, but is limited to challenging the voting status of one person at a time and must have personal knowledge of why that person is ineligible to vote.
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