GOP sees another setback in Nevada court on election lawsuit

A Carson City judge denied a motion by Republican groups to not count mail ballots that are received three days after Election Day and lack a postmark — a decision that adds to a growing list of unsuccessful legal challenges to Nevada’s election laws ahead of November.

The Republican National Committee, Nevada Republican Party, Donald Trump’s campaign and a state resident filed a lawsuit in June against Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar and county clerks in an effort to prohibit the counting of mail ballots received without a postmark.

On Friday, Carson City District Judge James Russell denied the plaintiffs’ motion to stop the counting of mail ballots that lack a postmark, but the lawsuit itself has not been dismissed.

An appeal is planned, but an attorney for the plaintiffs declined to comment on Monday. The Nevada secretary of state’s office, as well as a representative for the plaintiffs, also declined to comment Monday.

In the lawsuit, plaintiffs argued that counting non-postmarked mail ballots is not permitted by Nevada law, which allows a mail ballot to be counted when it has a valid postmark that indicates it was mailed on or before Election Day, or when it has a postmark whose date cannot be determined.

Nevada law says mail ballots must be mailed to the county clerk and postmarked on or before the day of the election and received by the clerk no later than 5 p.m. on the fourth day after an election. If a mail ballot is received no later than 5 p.m. on the third day following the election and the date of the postmark cannot be determined, the mail ballot shall be deemed to have been postmarked on or before Election Day.

Friday’s denial is the latest legal failure in Nevada for the RNC, which has made it a core mission to pursue election-related litigation ahead of the November election in what it describes as an effort to protect the ballot. Many of the party’s leaders and candidates — especially Trump — continue to make disproven claims of mass election fraud in the 2020 election. The RNC is involved in more than 80 similar lawsuits in at least 20 states, including Nevada.

Nevada has been a hot spot for unfounded claims of mass election fraud since the 2020 election. Former President Donald Trump and other Republicans pointed to Nevada — where President Joe Biden won with more than 30,000 votes — as one of the battleground states they claim was stolen from the former president.

Then-Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske and her staff spent more than 100 hours investigating claims that the 2020 election was stolen but found no evidence to support claims of widespread fraud, and Nevada courts dismissed lawsuits that alleged mass election fraud.

In mid-July, a judge dismissed another case filed by the RNC, the Trump campaign and the Nevada GOP challenging Nevada’s law that accepts mail ballots up to four days after an election.

They had argued that Nevada violated federal laws that established a uniform Election Day to elect members of Congress and presidential electors. They also argued that Republican groups are disproportionately harmed because Democrats tend to vote later, resulting in late-arriving mail ballots going more toward Democrats.

“The Nevada mail ballot receipt deadline does not have an ‘individual and personal’ effect on the voting power of Republican voters; it neither undermines their access to the polls nor disproportionately diminishes the weight of their votes relative to other Nevada voters,” Judge Miranda Du ruled.

Another lawsuit alleging inconsistencies in Nevada’s voter rolls was also dismissed.

Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah on X.