OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The Trump campaign alleges that Nevada is not taking sufficient measures to prevent noncitizens from being included on voter registration rolls in a new lawsuit against the state’s top election official.
In court filings on Thursday, the Trump campaign argued that Democratic Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar should take additional measures to safeguard the integrity of the vote, the Washington Examiner reported.
The Nevada GOP, the Republican National Committee, and a Clark County voter have joined the Trump campaign’s lawsuit against Aguilar, the Democratic National Committee, and the Nevada Democratic Party, the report said.
The lawsuit challenges former Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske’s review of alleged voter fraud evidence presented by the Nevada Republican Party following the 2020 election. In 2021, Cegavske concluded she didn’t find “evidentiary support for the contention that the 2020 general election was plagued by widespread voter fraud.”
The Trump campaign and its allies are now contending that Cegavske’s findings were based on a flawed interpretation of previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings, the Examiner noted further.
The lawsuit also cites Harvard University’s Cooperative Election Study, which revealed that 4% of noncitizen respondents in Nevada reported being registered to vote, compared to the national average of about 2.5%. Additionally, the campaign highlighted public court records showing that 8% of one district court’s jury pool reported disqualification due to noncitizenship, said the report.
The GOP has used this data in its lawsuit to argue that noncitizens have infiltrated voter rolls, pointing out that jury pools are partly drawn from voter registration lists, the outlet noted further, citing the lawsuit.
Aguilar rejected the GOP’s claims that he is “failing in his list maintenance and investigatory duties to ensure that only U.S. citizens are registered and voting in Nevada elections.” In addition, “There are already numerous safeguards in place to prevent noncitizens, or anyone ineligible to vote, from casting a ballot,” the secretary of state’s office told the Nevada Independent.
“Any claims of a widespread problem are false and only create distrust in our elections,” he said.
The RNC and the Nevada GOP recently hailed the secretary of state’s office for removing more than 76,000 inactive voters from the state’s active voter list in August.
“NVGOP & the Trump campaign have taken the lead to ensure election officials follow the law and clean our voter rolls. Thank you @NVSOS for these important updates,” the Nevada GOP praised in a post to X on Wednesday.
Election integrity starts with clean voter rolls.
That’s especially true in a state like Nevada, which automatically sends a mail ballot to every active voter listed on the roll.
Proud of this unified @GOP campaign to promote election integrity in the Silver State. https://t.co/nG29Dqa5Nb
— Michael Whatley (@ChairmanWhatley) September 11, 2024
Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have both spent considerable time in Nevada. Trump was the first to propose exempting tips from the federal income tax — a major pledge in a state dominated by service industry workers who rely heavily on tips for their income. Harris later championed Trump’s ‘no taxes on tips’ pledge and made the same promise.
The Examiner reported that Trump was in Las Vegas for a campaign rally again on Friday.
The Trump campaign, RNC, and the state GOP are engaged in another legal battle aimed at blocking the counting of mail-in ballots in Nevada that lack a clear postmark and are received several days after Election Day. Meanwhile, Gov. Joe Lombardo (R-NV) is fighting to implement a voter ID law, as Nevada does not require voters to provide any type of identification before casting a ballot in most cases, the Examiner reported.
