County won’t be forced to hire more Republicans for signature verification

Clark County will not be forced to hire more Republican poll workers for its ballot signature verification board after a judge on Thursday struck down two motions from the Republican National Committee.

The RNC had raised issues with the partisan makeup of the 64-member ballot signature verification board, arguing that Clark County had “disproportionately excluded Republicans and hired an overwhelming number of Democrats and Nonpartisans” for the board, which is made up of 23 Democrats, 33 nonpartisans and eight Republicans. They cited a state law that requires certain election boards to represent “all political parties as equally as possible.”

But Clark County District Judge Timothy Williams, who heard arguments in the case in court Wednesday, disagreed with the RNC’s assessment. Those hired for the signature verification board are temporary workers who have no power to make decisions on the ballot-counting process and therefore are not considered the same as boards that fall under the law cited by the RNC, Williams wrote in a decision issued Thursday.

“The Court finds that it is a big stretch to classify temporary employees as board members on a board that the County Registrar never created,” Williams wrote. “Thus, the temporary workers’ nominal exercise of discretion in performing a job-related task does not rise to the level of decision making typically expected from a board.”

Clark County, where roughly 70 percent of Nevada’s 1.8 million registered voters live, leans Democratic in partisan voter registration. Roughly 35 percent of the county’s voters are Democrat, compared with 26 percent Republican.

The RNC originally sued in September to force the county to disclose the names, job title and party affiliation of all poll workers employed in the 2022 cycle. State law requires that election board officers at any polling location can’t all be registered members of the same political party. Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria refused the request, citing privacy concerns and risk of harassment of the workers.

The two sides came to an agreement in which the county would provide the workers’ party affiliation and title, and the RNC agreed to not request the workers’ names.

A judge issued a stay in the lawsuit after the agreement in October, but the RNC petitioned to lift that stay last week over the signature verification teams.

“Despite today’s disappointing ruling, our aggressive legal strategy forced Clark County to reveal the records it was hiding and the county has since hired a significant number of GOP poll workers. The RNC is ready to legally intervene again on behalf of Nevada voters if the need arises,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement Thursday.

Lisa Logsdon, Clark County counsel representing Gloria in the case, told Williams in court Wednesday that hiring was not done according to political verification and that the signature verification panel’s makeup changes daily depending on its members’ availability.

She said the registrar’s office has roughly 40 year-round employees and hires nearly 2,000 people for temporary jobs to “staff the signature verification room,” with the hiring done at the registrar’s discretion.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Contact Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.