Judge blocks Trump campaign challenge to Nevada county’s mail-in ballots

A Carson City judge has reportedly blocked a lawsuit filed by the Nevada Republican Party and President Trump’s reelection campaign that sought to change how Clark County counted and verified ballots.

Claiming the current system allowed for voter fraud risks and dilution of the vote, the lawsuit argued for “meaningful” observation of the counting process such as cameras inside the room where ballots are stored and a process for mail-in ballots to be challenged. 

“There is no evidence of any debasement or dilution of any citizen’s vote,” wrote Judge James Wilson, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal. A few weeks ago, Wilson also blocked a request by Republican members to halt mail-in ballot counting in Clark County.

The county is home to Las Vegas, where more than 640,000 people live. The Silver State voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Responding to the lawsuit’s claims that the voting system in place created different classes of voters, Wilson reportedly wrote, “All Nevada voters have the right to choose to vote in-person or by mail-in. Voting in person and voting by mailing in the ballot are different and so the procedures are different. There is no evidence that anything the State or Clark County have done creates two different classes of voters.”

Wilson also denied a request to cease use of Agilis signature-verifying machines, saying again that no evidence had been presented to suggest there were errors or flaws within them.

The lawsuit was filed Oct. 23, 11 days before the election, and Wilson stated that election officials, already having to operate in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, had “relatively little time to assess, plan, modify, and implement procedures.”

Dan Kulin, spokesperson for Clark County said, “This is the busiest time of the year for the Election Department and we are glad to have another baseless lawsuit dismissed so quickly.”

This case is one of several that Trump’s reelection campaign has filed in states across the U.S. The GOP has filed two requests to the Supreme Court to block mail-in ballots from being accepted in Pennsylvania three days after the election. A judge dismissed a request by Trump’s campaign to block New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s (D) plan to send mail-in ballots to all New Jersey voters as a safety precaution against COVID-19.

The common theme among all these cases is the claim that actions expanding mail-in voting will lead to voter fraud, despite many experts stating that voter fraud in the U.S. occurs minimally.

More than 95 million people have already cast their ballot early and voter turnout is projected to be the highest it has been in a century.