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A rural Nevada county is shining a light on why we have to protect elections now [1]

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Date: 2022-10-28

The ACLU asked the state Supreme Court to intervene, spokesman Wesley Juhl said Wednesday night, on the grounds that the county was not complying with the court’s order not to release results publicly. The ACLU filed an emergency request with the state Supreme Court Thursday morning, accusing the county of violating the court’s rules, and the court agreed.

In one incident, ACLU’s Wesley Juhl told the AP, an armed election volunteer threw an ACLU observer out of one of the rooms and tried to take her notes. “That volunteer never drew a firearm,” ACLU Nevada chief Athar Haseebullah added Thursday, but said there was a handgun handle visible in the volunteer’s waistband. “We weren’t removed from the counting site, but that volunteer did pull my team member out of the room where she was observing.”

Public observers are allowed in the counts, and the vote counters are reading the names of candidates voted for aloud, within earshot of the observers. That, the ACLU warned elections officials, constitutes “a release of election results in violation of Nevada law.” Nye county was required by the secretary of state’s office to split teams of volunteers into separate rooms so observers wouldn’t know the “totality of returns.” How they could prevent coordination by observers in those separate rooms apparently wasn’t addressed.

The process Wednesday was a mess. The AP says that two of the five groups it observed Wednesday each took about three hours to count 50 ballots. “Mismatched tallies led to recounts, and occasionally more recounts. Several noted how arduous the process was, with one volunteer lamenting: ‘I can’t believe it’s two hours to get through 25’ ballots.”

“One group observed by AP found during their first 30 minutes that they had mismatched numbers for eight candidates. A recount took nearly 40 minutes, and two of the recounts still had different outcomes.” The counting Thursday went smoother, Kampf insisted. “The first day was a little rough as you could imagine, but today things are going very smooth, much fewer recounts.” Nonetheless, he confirmed to the ACLU that counting would not go forward Friday.

Unfortunately, Secretary of State Cegavakse is stepping down. She’s been a stalwart defender of her state’s election integrity. The Republican running to replace her, Jim Marchant, is not. He is a QAnon-allied Trumpist and election denier who regularly tells audiences that electors are corrupt. He has vowed to force every county in the state to use hand counts.

“When my coalition of secretary of state candidates around the country get elected, we’re gonna fix the whole country, and President Trump is gonna be president again,” Marchant told the crowd at a recent Trump rally in Nevada, with Trump alongside him.

Marchant is also leading in recent polling, what little there is of it. An early October SSRS poll for CNN showed Marchant leading Democrat Cisco Aguilar 46-43. A more recent poll, from the University of Nevada, Reno has it tighter: 29% for Democrat Aguilar, 27% for Republican Jim Marchant, 40% undecided. That’s a lot of undecideds to bring around.

This makes Nevada the poster child for election protection, demonstrating just how critical it is that Democrats and honest candidates win the critical offices—secretary of state, state supreme courts, and attorney general. It’s why Daily Kos has endorsed 18 candidates across the country, including Cisco Aguilar and attorney general candidate Aaron Ford in Nevada. The single most powerful thing we can do to stop Trump from stealing 2024 is to elect these Democrats as crucial bulwarks against right-wing attempts to steal the election in 2024.

Please donate $1 to each of these Daily Kos-endorsed Democrats for attorney general, secretary of state, and state supreme court to stop MAGA election deniers from stealing the 2024 election.

Donald Trump and his MAGA allies came close to overthrowing our democracy on January 6, and they will try again if they win in 2022. The best thing you can do is to help get out the Democratic vote for the midterms, and we need everyone to do what they can. Click here to find all the volunteer opportunities available.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/28/2131881/-Nevada-vote-counting-fiasco-shows-why-election-protection-is-everything-the-2022-ballot

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