Nevada Supreme Court rejects lawsuit targeting new election law

CARSON CITY — The Nevada Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked a conservative group’s challenge to a new Nevada law that allows for mail-in ballots during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The lawsuit was filed by the Election Integrity Project of Nevada, backed by former state lawmaker and failed U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle. It argued that Assembly Bill 4 — the law passed during a special session in August that requires mail-in ballots be sent to active registered voters across the state as part of the state’s plan to let people vote safely during the pandemic — violates the state constitution because it allows for “standardless counting procedures” and lacks safeguards against voter fraud.

The arguments raised in the state lawsuit are similar to ones made by the state Republican party and President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign in a federal lawsuit that challenged the new law. That lawsuit was also dismissed last month.

In their unanimous ruling issued Wednesday, the justices said that the lower court was not wrong in denying the group’s ask for a preliminary injunction that would have stopped the Nevada secretary of state from implementing the legislation. They agreed with the lower court that the group did not present substantial evidence that the parts of the law that were challenged “are not rationally related to the State’s interest in ensuring that all active registered voters have an opportunity to exercise their right to vote in a safe and secure manner during a pandemic.”

The justices also disagreed with the argument from Angle’s group that mail-in ballots would lead to more voter fraud, an argument that Republicans have tried and failed to make in court several times this election cycle, including ahead of the primary election.

The group, the justices said, “presented no concrete evidence that such events will occur or that the Secretary of State’s maintenance of the voter rolls exacerbated any such problem.”

“And there are provisions in AB 4, along with existing provisions of NRS Chapter 293, that provide numerous safeguards to prevent and detect voter fraud, including criminal prohibitions against voter fraud, voter intimidation, and related offenses,” they added.

In their ruling, the justices also took issue with the amount of time the group took before filing the lawsuit in state court.

The bill was signed into law by Gov. Steve Sisolak on Aug. 3, and the court noted that the federal lawsuit brought by the Trump campaign was filed the next day.

The lawsuit from Election Integrity Project wasn’t filed in state district court until Sept. 1. The appeal to the high court was filed on Sept. 25, and the justices noted that ballots in some Nevada counties were scheduled to be mailed as early as Sept. 24.

The justices were reluctant to potentially upend the election this late in the process, considering ballots in most counties have already been sent out as of Tuesday.

“And while we have endeavored to expedite both briefing and consideration of this matter to the extent possible, to grant the petition at this late date would inject a significant measure of confusion into an election process that is already underway. We are reluctant to do so absent a clear and compelling demonstration that the district court had a legal duty to enjoin AB 4,” the justices wrote. “That showing has not been made here.”

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