Nevada Republicans sue to stop Clark County vote count

LAS VEGAS — The Trump campaign and Nevada Republicans asked a state judge on Friday to stop the count of Las Vegas-area mail-in ballots, alleging that "meaningful observation" of signature-checking is impossible in the state's biggest and most Democratic-leaning county.

A lawsuit filed in state court in Carson City 10 days before the Nov. 3 election complains that observers haven't been allowed close enough to workers and machines at the busy vote processing center to see whether ballots that get second- and third-step validation should be rejected.

It alleges that Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria failed to get proper approval in April from Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske for his plan to accommodate observers, and seeks an immediate decision on a court order to "prohibit ... processing and counting ballots until the proper procedures are in place."

It also complains that a GOP offer to install video monitoring equipment at the Clark County election headquarters was rejected.

Donald J. Trump for President campaign co-chairman in Nevada, former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt, said in an interview that it appeared that not enough ballots were being rejected.

He cited state election data showing that more than 98% of mailed ballots received as of Thursday in Clark County had been accepted as valid.

"It's hard to believe there's only a 1% rejection rate," Laxalt told The Associated Press. "Once a signature is verified, no campaign has the ability to challenge that vote."

"All we want is to be part of the signature verification process and the ability to challenge a mail-in signature," he said.

State Democrats accused the GOP of using the dispute to try to suppress voter turnout.

Las Vegas-area voter and count-watcher Fred Kraus is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, which was filed in Nevada's capital city because the secretary of state is a plaintiff.

Clark County has more than 70% of the nearly 1.75 million active voters in the state. Registered Democrats number more than 504,000, compared with about 351,000 Republicans and 300,000 with no party affiliation.

Gloria said in an interview before the lawsuit was filed that the Las Vegas-area voting plan is safe, fair and nonpartisan, and that even amid COVID-19 pandemic distancing rules, observers were being accommodated.

Allowing a party to install and control cameras and keep recordings to itself would be inappropriate, he said, and would violate state law prohibiting public photos or videos at the counting center

Changing operations now would be challenging, Gloria added.

Sam Metz, a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative, contributed to this report from Carson City. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.