Conservative group seeks to stop June mail-in primary

A conservative vote-monitoring group wants Nevada to scrap its plans to conduct a mail-in primary election in June, claiming it violates the U.S. Constitution and would open the state up to voter fraud.

Attorneys for True the Vote filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday challenging Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske’s plans to shift to an all-mail primary amid coronavirus concerns.

In its complaint, the group says the plan “strips vital anti-vote-fraud safeguards” that exist with in-person voting that “allow local poll workers and watchers to monitor who is voting and deny voting and issue challenges if appropriate.”

Cegavske made the move to a mail primary because of increased risk and mitigation efforts regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Part of her plan includes opening up one in-person polling place in each county.

In normal elections, voters would have to request an absentee ballot. The group says that eliminating that requesting process creates “fraud potential of having unrequested, perhaps unexpected ballots arriving around the state.” That could lead to ballots being ignored or left in a pile of letters, which “invites ballot fraud.”

The complaint alleges that Cegavske overstepped her powers by deciding to change the election format, arguing that it’s up to the state Legislature to determine how elections are carried out.

“A republican form of government is lost if a secretary of state and county administrators supplant the people’s elected representative in exercising powers entrusted entirely to the Legislature, in this case establishing the manner of elections,” the complaint said.

The group also asserts in the complaint that voters’ right to vote is violated because “they didn’t vote for the secretary and county administrators to represent them.”

In Nevada, county election officials are not elected. The secretary of state, however, is an elected position with four-year terms.

Wayne Thorley, deputy secretary of state over elections in Nevada, said that the office had received the complaint but declined to comment on it.

With the latest lawsuit, Cegavske’s plan is now facing legal challenge from both sides of the political aisle. The Nevada Democratic Party and various democratic groups last week filed their own lawsuit claiming that the mail-in election would violate Nevadans’ voting rights as well as the U.S. and state constitutions.

The Democrats’ lawsuit seeks to force the state to add more in-person polling places, relax laws against so-called vote harvesting and for ballots to be mailed to all registered voters, not just active voters.

On Wednesday, the Nevada Republican Party and Republican National Committee filed a motion to intervene in the Democrats’ lawsuit as defendants alongside Cegavske and the state.

“The laws the Democrats are seeking to skirt are in place to ensure Nevadans can trust the election process is safe and fair,” Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael J. McDonald said in a statement.

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.