Tipsheet

RNC Chair Demands Investigation into Nevada Election Changes

Cortney O'Brien
Cortney O'Brien  |  May 20, 2020 4:30 PM

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel is concerned by events surrounding the upcoming June 9 Nevada primary election, as it appears the Clark County Commission struck a backroom deal with the Nevada Democratic Party to make changes to the contest. The Republican leader summarized the shady behavior in her urgent letter to Attorney General Aaron D. Ford on Wednesday.

"As relevant here, plaintiffs wanted the defendants to mail ballots to all inactive voters—hundreds of thousands of persons the state has good reason to believe no longer live at their last voting address," Chairwoman McDaniel wrote. "They wanted to eliminate the way the defendants verify an absentee voter’s identity; under plaintiffs’ plan, no longer could Defendants match the signature on the voter’s ballot envelope to the signature on the voter’s registration. And they wanted to eliminate the ban on ballot harvesting, meaning unsupervised third parties with no relationship to the voter could collect and submit those ballots. Because you are a defendant in that case, those claims are no doubt familiar to you."

"An untold number of unclaimed ballots are scattered around Clark County—everywhere from community message boards to garbage cans," McDaniel later noted.

The chairwoman also hinted that the election changes will cost Clark County taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. She is requesting a multi-level investigation.

"On behalf of the Republican National Committee and the Nevada Republican Party, I ask you to investigate under NRS 241.039 whether those events violated Nevada’s open public meeting law, and to investigate under NRS 293.840 whether the consequences of Clark County’s decisions have violated Nevada’s election laws," she wrote.

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In addition, she advised Ford to look into which Clark County officials made the decision, when it was made, and which outside groups were involved.

"Americans deserve to have confidence in their elections, and shady backroom deals made to undermine our elections process do nothing but erode public trust in democracy," McDaniel said. "The American people deserve answers and we fully intend to get them."

President Trump weighed in on the election changes in Nevada, suggesting that if the officials proceed with the plan, he'll consider withholding federal funding from the state.