Carson City: President Donald Trump’s campaign asked Nevada’s top court to halt ballot counting in the state’s biggest county amid disputes over the accuracy of its signature-matching technology and public access for election observers who claim they’re being kept too far from the action.
The campaign and the Nevada Republican Party asked the state Supreme Court on Tuesday to expedite its review of the case, which a judge rejected last week due to a lack of evidence of any wrongdoing by Clark County officials.
Trump’s campaign said it will suffer irreparable harm if the ruling isn’t overturned. It seeks a court order barring Clark County from “authenticating ballots using artificial intelligence” or tabulating additional ballots unless observers can “meaningfully observe the process.”
“In addition to being unlawful, the observation plan fails to ensure transparency and integrity as it does not allow the public to see election officials during key points of mail ballot processing,” the campaign said.
The suit was filed last week, alleging Clark County — home to Las Vegas — refused to allow full observation of the ballot-counting process as required under state law. But Judge James E. Wilson ruled Oct. 29 that the campaign hadn’t provided enough evidence to back its claim.
In a statement Tuesday, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat, called the case “the Trump Campaign and Nevada Republican Party’s attempt to disrupt the election process in Clark County.”
‘Ripe for error’
Trump has pledged a fierce legal fight over vote counting that would drag on after polls close. Until now, the battle has focused mostly on curtailing Democratic efforts to loosen rules for voting by mail. The president’s campaign previously sued Nevada to block its plan to automatically send ballots to all registered voters, but the suit failed.
The campaign and the Nevada GOP claim the vote-by-mail system being used in Clark County “creates a process ripe for error or abuse.”
It also pointed to a machine used by the county that scans ballots and attempts to use artificial intelligence to match signatures on the envelope with those on record from the Department of Motor Vehicles and other sources. The machines aren’t set to high enough sensitivity to accurately match the signatures, Trump’s campaign claims.
The settings are “casting doubt on whether the system reads any signature accurately,” the Nevada Republican Party said in a Tuesday statement.
The campaign and Nevada GOP say some observers are being kept as far as 25 feet away (8 meters) from the counting process, where they can’t see election workers’ computer screens or observe phone calls to voters who need to fix issues with their ballots. It also said an offer by Republicans to pay for a camera to record the process as an alternative to in-person observation was refused.
Wilson, who tossed the case out, said there’s no constitutional right to photograph or videotape the ballot-counting process. He also ruled there was no evidence “that there was an error in matching a ballot signature” or that “any election staff were biased or prejudiced for or against any party or candidate.” – Bloomberg
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