By Mark Robison, Reno Gazette Journal, March 20, 2024
The Republican National Committee made good this week on its threat to sue Nevada’s Secretary of State over allegations that too many people are on voter rolls.
“Election integrity starts with clean voter rolls, and that’s why the National Voter Registration Act requires state officials to keep their rolls accurate and up to date,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement.
“Nevada has universal mail voting and no voter ID requirement, which makes Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar’s failure to comply with the NVRA and provide accurate voter rolls all the more concerning. Securing clean voter rolls in Nevada is a critical step towards ensuring that it will be easy to vote and hard to cheat.”
This follows another RNC voter roll lawsuit filed last week in Michigan.
The Nevada Attorney General’s office sent a 12-page letter in January to the RNC’s attorney in response to the organization’s December threat to sue. It lays out the reasons the state believes that it and Nevada’s counties are in compliance with federal voter roll maintenance requirements.
“Based on more accurate data and applicable laws, we strongly disagree with your claim,” the letter says.
What does the RNC-Nevada lawsuit say?
Those bringing the lawsuit are the Republican National Committee, the Nevada Republican Party and a Washoe County voter named Scott Johnston.
They say they’ve been harmed by the state’s failure to remove voters who shouldn’t be on registration rolls.
“At least three Nevada counties have more registered voters than they have adult citizens who are over the age of 18. That number of voters is impossibly high,” the lawsuit says. “An additional two counties have voter registration rates that exceed 90 percent of adult citizens over the age of 18. That figure far eclipses the national and statewide voter registration rate in recent elections.”
Based on this and other evidence, the lawsuit claims, the Nevada Secretary of State’s office and county election officials have failed to comply with the National Voter Registration Act.
“Retaining voter rolls bloated with ineligible voters harms the electoral process, heightens the risk of electoral fraud, and undermines public confidence in elections,” the lawsuit says.
This also causes the RNC to waste money trying to reach legitimate voters as well as dilutes the voting power of Johnston, it says.
The lawsuit seeks a court finding that Nevada is in violation of federal law, a court order to instruct state and county election officials to “develop and implement reasonable and effective registration list-maintenance programs,” and pay for the plaintiff’s attorney fees and related costs.
State of Nevada’s response to the lawsuit
The attorney general’s letter says the National Voter Registration Act “only requires states to remove voters based on a change of address or death.”
It then lays out the specific ways the state and counties do this, often based directly on requirements in Nevada law.
Among the sources for updating address changes in Nevada voter rolls, the letter says, are U.S. Postal Service change-of-address filings, mail-in ballots that are returned as undeliverable, and when a voter’s information is flagged for failure to participate in multiple elections.
Dead voters are removed from the rolls using the Nevada Registrar of Vital Statistics’ database, it adds.
Contacted about the RNC lawsuit, a Secretary of State spokesperson said the office doesn’t have anything to add to the attorney general’s letter.
The Secretary of State’s office is rolling out a new Voter Registration and Election Management Solution system, slated to go live in July, that it says will further improve maintenance of voter rolls by replacing the state’s bottom-up system where each county has its own method of providing updates.
Who’s named in the RNC-Nevada lawsuit?
In addition the RNC and Nevada GOP, Johnston is listed as a plaintiff. He is described in the lawsuit as a member of the Washoe County Republican Party’s central committee and a precinct captain for the Galena Forest Estates area since 2020.
Sigal Chattah, a Las Vegas attorney and 2022 Republican candidate for state attorney general, is listed as local counsel for the Nevada Republican Party.
Those being sued in their official capacities are Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, Clark County Registrar of Voters Lorena Portillo, and the clerks for Carson City and Lyon, Douglas and Storey counties.
“Washoe County is not named (as a plaintiff) in the lawsuit and it would not be our place to comment on it,” said Washoe County elections spokesperson George Guthrie.
“I can say that we are confident in the election process and make every effort to communicate with voters to ensure access to this fundamental American right.”
Concern about using Census data
The lawsuit claims that “based on data gathered from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey and the most up-to-date count of registered voters available from the Nevada Secretary of State,” Douglas, Lyon and Storey counties have more active voters than they have voting-eligible citizens.
The attorney general’s letter goes into great detail about why the state believes the RNC’s method is fatally flawed.
It says that the RNC combines the U.S. Census’ 2022 Current Population Survey with its Citizen Voting Age Population from 2019.
“This is comparing apples to orangutans,” the letter says.
The U.S. Census information is intended for monitoring trends at the national level, it says, and was never intended to provide precise state-level registration rates.
“And yet, you apply these rates as if they were absolute truth,” the letter from the Nevada attorney general’s office continues. “It defies credulity that a survey conducted for an entirely different purpose, with a necessarily inaccurate recall-based measure of registration and a necessarily imprecise sample estimate of registration, forms a cornerstone of your analysis.”
Chuck Muth, a Republican who runs Project Pigpen to clean up voter rolls in Nevada, also has issues with the RNC’s effort.
Coincidentally, he said, he was meeting with “one of the premier election law attorneys in the country” when he learned about the lawsuit.
“He told me he doesn’t think they’ll get anywhere with it because courts have already found that using Census data this way isn’t an appropriate use to show an inconsistency” in voter-roll numbers, Muth said.
He said he wished the RNC was not pursuing this lawsuit because he thinks it will turn off nonpartisan voters that Republicans need to win elections in Nevada.
“I’m disappointed with the RNC, but there’s nothing you can do to stop them,” Muth said.