‘Invites Fraud’: Key Swing State Could See Repeat Of 2020’s Bal­lot-Count­ing Chaos Thanks To Court Rul­ing

LAS VEGAS, Neva­da — Nevada’s mail-in vot­ing rules mean final results in close races may not be avail­able on elec­tion night.

In 2020, the Asso­ci­at­ed Press did not call the pres­i­den­tial race in Neva­da until four days after the elec­tion. While a repeat sce­nario is not top of mind for every vot­er, sev­er­al who spoke with the DCNF at ear­ly vot­ing loca­tions were trou­bled by the cur­rent sys­tem.

“We need to make sure we don’t have fraud­u­lent bal­lots com­ing in or inel­i­gi­ble vot­ers send­ing in stuff well after the elec­tion,” Joe, a Trump vot­er who has lived in Las Vegas for 10 years, told the Dai­ly Caller News Foun­da­tion. “So I think every­thing needs to be in by Elec­tion Day.”

The Neva­da Supreme Court ruled Mon­day that mail-in bal­lots with­out any post­mark can still be count­ed if they are received with­in three days of the elec­tion.

“If a vot­er prop­er­ly and time­ly casts their vote by mail­ing their bal­lot before or on the day of the elec­tion, and through a post office omis­sion the bal­lot is not post­marked, it would go against pub­lic pol­i­cy to dis­count that prop­er­ly cast vote,” the court deter­mined.

Under state law, bal­lots post­marked on or before elec­tion day can also be count­ed up to four days after.

“Requir­ing bal­lots to be post­marked on or before elec­tion day is a crit­i­cal elec­tion integri­ty safe­guard that ensures bal­lots mailed after elec­tion day are not count­ed,” Repub­li­can Nation­al Com­mit­tee spokesper­son Claire Zunk said in a state­ment to the DCNF. “It is also a require­ment of Neva­da law. By allow­ing Neva­da offi­cials to ignore the law’s post­mark require­ment, the state’s high­est court has under­mined the integri­ty of Nevada’s elec­tions.”

In 2022, slight­ly more than half of Nevada’s votes were cast using mail-in bal­lots, accord­ing to a report from the U.S. Elec­tion Assis­tance Com­mis­sion.

Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fel­low at the Her­itage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Cen­ter for Legal and Judi­cial Stud­ies, said whether the race is called that night depends on how many bal­lots come in after Elec­tion Day.

“We won’t real­ly know because there is no way to pre­dict that,” he told the DCNF. “But it is a mon­u­men­tal­ly stu­pid deci­sion that invites fraud by bad actors who may try to gath­er up bal­lots that have not been vot­ed and then sub­mit them after Elec­tion Day as they see the pre­lim­i­nary, unof­fi­cial results.”

Neva­da Sec­re­tary of State Fran­cis­co Aguilar did imple­ment sev­er­al mea­sures to speed up the process this year, includ­ing allow­ing tab­u­la­tion of ear­ly vot­ing returns begin­ning at 8 am on Elec­tion Day. Mail bal­lots can be count­ed begin­ning 15 days before the elec­tion, accord­ing to guid­ance giv­en to the coun­ties. (RELATED: Swing State Repub­li­cans Are Lean­ing Into Bal­lot Har­vest­ing — And It Seems To Be Work­ing)

“This year, the coun­try will be look­ing to Neva­da to deter­mine the win­ner of the Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion,” Aguilar wrote in May. “Vot­ers deserve avail­able results on elec­tion night; releas­ing results soon­er will increase trans­paren­cy, help us com­bat mis­in­for­ma­tion and alle­vi­ate pres­sure on elec­tion offi­cials.”

Neva­da Supreme Court con­cludes that the word “post­mark” means “no post­mark.” https://t.co/wZJQkBz1tO pic.twitter.com/sLtiURmVuI

— Derek T. Muller (@derektmuller) Octo­ber 28, 2024

Zach, a Demo­c­rat who is sup­port­ing Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris because of abor­tion, felt for the first time this cycle that he need­ed to vote in-per­son. While he does not believe the laws need to be changed, he told the DCNF he was “ner­vous” about send­ing his mail-in bal­lot, espe­cial­ly after fires were set to drop­box­es in Port­land, Ore­gon, and Van­cou­ver, Wash­ing­ton.

“I don’t want to risk that,” he said.

Edward, a Trump vot­er whose top issues were immi­gra­tion and reduc­ing the deficit, told the DCNF he was “very con­cerned” by late results from mail-in bal­lots. “That needs to go,” he said. “It needs to be in-per­son and show an ID. And it should get done the same day by 10 o’clock.”

“You should vote either in-per­son or by the day and show who you are,” Angela, a Trump vot­er, told the DCNF. (RELATED: Pro-Pales­tine Mes­sages Report­ed­ly Found On Devices At Bal­lot Box Fires)

George Guthrie, spokesman for Washoe County’s elec­tion office, told the DCNF the results are unof­fi­cial until cer­ti­fied by the board of coun­ty com­mis­sion­ers on Nov. 15. Before that date, it’s dif­fi­cult to esti­mate “when every vote is count­ed,” he said.

“I can say how­ev­er the office is con­fi­dent in hav­ing the major­i­ty of our results released on Elec­tion Night when all polls are closed across the state,” he said, explain­ing in-per­son votes from elec­tion day and ear­ly vot­ing, as well as mail bal­lots processed to that point, will be count­ed. How­ev­er, not all votes will be received on elec­tion night as “bal­lots are most like­ly in the mail in tran­sit to our office.”

Washoe Coun­ty is a swing coun­ty with the sec­ond great­est pop­u­la­tion in the state.

In the more pop­u­lat­ed Clark Coun­ty, where Democ­rats typ­i­cal­ly lead, the elec­tions depart­ment did not respond to mul­ti­ple requests for com­ment about the antic­i­pat­ed time­line for results.

“We had a whole enve­lope full of bal­lots dropped off today, which is real­ly excit­ing to see,” Halee Dob­bins, GOP com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor for Neva­da and Ari­zona, told me dur­ing the ral­ly. pic.twitter.com/EnGlvhUKy7

— Kate­lynn Richard­son (@katesrichardson) Octo­ber 25, 2024

This year, Neva­da res­i­dents are also vot­ing on a bal­lot ques­tion that would amend the state con­sti­tu­tion to require vot­er iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. (RELATED: Repub­li­cans Hope­ful ‘His­toric’ Ear­ly Vote Turnout Could Enable Unex­pect­ed Swing State Can­di­date To Flip The Sen­ate)

Despite lin­ger­ing con­cerns about the new rules, Repub­li­cans in the state have leaned into bal­lot har­vest­ing, which became legal in 2020, and pushed sup­port­ers to vote ear­ly. Dur­ing a Trump ral­ly last week, some vot­ers took advan­tage of a return for mail-in bal­lots offered on-site.

The par­ty has seen great suc­cess in ear­ly vot­ing, sur­pass­ing pre­vi­ous years. Repub­li­cans lead by over 40,000 votes as of Wednes­day morn­ing.

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