Nevada voting
Gov. Joe Lombardo’s administration is proposing sweeping legislation that would change the state’s election system just two years after Nevada transitioned to a mostly vote-by-mail system, a move that would almost assuredly be met with continued opposition by Democrats, who control the Legislature.
Senate Bill 405, introduced Monday to the Senate Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections, proposes a slew of changes to the way elections are carried out throughout the state. Most notably, the bill contains provisions that would require the state to distribute a mail ballot only upon request by the registered voter. Under current law, mail-in ballots are sent by default to the state’s 1.9 million active registered voters in the weeks leading up to a general election.
In a statement, Lombardo spokeswoman Elizabeth Ray said by introducing the bill, the governor was making good on a promise of “common sense” election reform.
“Measures proposed in SB405, including voter ID, are practical, realistic, and supported by the majority of Nevadans — across party lines,” Ray wrote. “SB405 will help restore faith and timeliness in our election system, so that every Nevadan has confidence that our voting process is free and fair.”
In response, Assemblywoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno, D-North Las Vegas, the majority whip in the Assembly, said the proposal was doing nothing but “emboldening election deniers.”
“Not even halfway through the legislative session, Gov. Lombardo is making his priorities clear: rolling back voting rights,” Monroe-Moreno wrote. “Lombardo is more concerned with scoring political points by emboldening election deniers than giving Nevadans a voice at the ballot box. As he prioritized deadly conspiracy theories and MAGA extremists at the expense of Nevadans’ right to vote, it seems Lombardo has conveniently forgotten the law enforcement background he so often touts.”
Existing law also requires ballots returned by mail to a county or city clerk be postmarked on or before Election Day, and be processed within four days following the election and still be counted. But under Lombardo’s proposed bill, the deadline to count a mail ballot would be moved up to the time polls close on Election Day.
That would allow election workers to publicize results on par with the rest of the country, Lombardo said at his State of the State address in January. Several races from the 2022 election weren’t called until several days after the Nov. 8 elections, making Nevada among the last states to release unofficial final results.
If passed, the bill would also require voters to show identification to cast a ballot. Those IDscould range from certain government-issued documents or ID cards that show “a recognizable photograph” of the person, or otherwise “certain documentation from an administrator of certain health care facilities licensed by the state.” It would also compel the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles to issue voter ID cards free of charge to registered voters who do not possess an acceptable form of identification and submit an application.
Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, a first-term Democrat who ran on expanding voter access, had said previously he would oppose any proposed restrictions on the current voting system.
Aguilar could not be reached for comment.
For those voting by mail, the proposed bill would require voters to write either the last four digits of their Social Security Number or the entirety of their driver’s license number alongside their signature on the return envelope. Existing law requires voters to simply affix their signature when casting a ballot.
Additionally, the bill contains sections requiring any person applying to vote whose identity has been challenged to furnish proof of their identity when challenged, according to a digest of the bill released by the Nevada Legislative Counsel. Anyone who fails to provide proof of identity when voting in person would then need to cast a provisional ballot.
The bill also aims to limit ballot harvesting by limiting those returning ballots on behalf of another voter to no more than 30 mail ballots and requiring them to submit an affidavit to the state and an additional report to the secretary of state’s office listing each voter on whose behalf the person returned a ballot.
Touted by some conservatives as critical reforms needed to protect the integrity of elections in Nevada, such a bill risks disenfranchising voters primarily from marginalized areas, voting rights advocates say. Calls to overhaul the election process didn’t come to the mainstream until the run-up to the 2020 election, when former President Donald Trump repeatedly claimed, falsely, that the only way he would lose his reelection bid would be if the election was “rigged.”
Many Nevada Republicans touted theories after the 2020 presidential election that mail-in ballots were submitted fraudulently, but Nevada election officials spent more than 125 hours thoroughly investigating the claims and found no evidence to support widespread fraud.
Additionally, audits conducted across the U.S. have yielded no evidence to support claims of widespread voter fraud.
Democrats hold a 28-14 veto-proof supermajority in the Assembly and a 13-8 edge in the upper chamber, and were quick to dismiss Lombardo’s proposals when he mentioned them in his State of the State address in January.
Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, D-Las Vegas, and Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager, D-Las Vegas, called the proposal a “nonstarter” that would threaten to disenfranchise voters across the state.
In November, dozens of news reporters from national outlets flocked to Nevada as results from the U.S. Senate race would ultimately decide control of the upper chamber. It took until Nov. 12 — four days after Election Day — for those results to be finalized.
Elections officials in Nevada say they are simply following the statutory deadlines imposed by existing law, and the speed at which they can process votes is greatly affected by factors like when they are allowed to begin counting ballots to the method in which mail ballot signatures are verified.
Universal mail voting was made permanent in Nevada in 2021 after it was instituted as a temporary pandemic measure in 2020. Other states with larger populations, such as Pennsylvania and Florida, have been dealing with a glut of mail ballots for several years. In Nevada, officials are still getting the ball rolling, Joe Gloria, former Clark County registrar of voters, said in November.
“We’re only in our second year of what we do. I know that we have the proper equipment to process ballots efficiently here in Clark County, but the laws are different,” he said.
“But I can tell you with a great deal of confidence that what we’re doing here in Clark County is moving about as quickly as we can. I have to caution that by saying we don’t want to move too fast. We want to make sure that we’re being accurate in validating the signatures and the identity of folks.”