Voters line up outside of a Takoma Park, Md., polling place. Takoma Park is one of 17 jurisdictions nationally that allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. (Jose Luis Magana/The Associated Press)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Preventing people who are not United States citizens from casting a ballot has reemerged as a focal point in the ongoing Republican drive to safeguard “election integrity,” even though noncitizens are rarely involved in voter fraud.

Ahead of November’s presidential election, congressional and state Republican lawmakers are aiming to keep noncitizens away from the polls. They’re using state constitutional amendments and new laws that require citizenship verification to vote. Noncitizens can vote in a handful of local elections in several states, but already are not allowed to vote in statewide or federal elections.

Some Republicans argue that preventing noncitizens from casting ballots — long a boogeyman in conservative politics — reduces the risk of fraud and increases confidence in American democracy. But even some on the right think these efforts are going too far, as they churn up anti-immigration sentiment and unsupported fears of widespread fraud, all to boost turnout among the GOP base.

While Republican congressional leaders want to require documentation proving U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections, voters in at least four states will decide on ballot measures in November that would amend their state constitutions to clarify that only U.S. citizens can vote in state and local elections.

Over the past six years, Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota and Ohio have all amended their state constitutions.

In Kentucky — which along with Idaho, Iowa and Wisconsin is now considering a constitutional amendment — noncitizens voting will not be tolerated, said Republican state Sen. Damon Thayer, who voted in February to put the amendment on November’s ballot. Five Democrats between the two chambers backed the Republican-authored legislation, while 16 others dissented.

“There is a lot of concern here about the Biden administration’s open border policies,” Thayer, the majority floor leader, told Stateline. “People see it on the news every day, with groups of illegals pouring through the border. And they’re combined with concerns on election integrity.”

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson expressed similar concerns last month when he announced new legislation — despite an existing 1996 ban — that would make it illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. During a trip to Florida to meet with former President Donald Trump, the Louisiana Republican said it’s common sense to require proof of citizenship.

“It could, if there are enough votes, affect the presidential election,” he said, standing in front of Trump in the presumptive presidential nominee’s Mar-a-Lago resort. “We cannot wait for widespread fraud to occur, especially when the threat of fraud is growing with every single illegal immigrant that crosses that border.”

That rhetoric is rooted in a fear about how the U.S. is changing demographically, becoming more diverse as the non-white population increases, said longtime Republican strategist Mike Madrid. Though this political strategy has worked to galvanize support among GOP voters in the past, he questions whether this will be effective politically in the long term.

“There’s no problem being solved here,” said Madrid, whose forthcoming book, “The Latino Century,” outlines the group’s growing voter participation. “This is all politics. It’s all about stoking fears and angering the base.”

Noncitizens are voting in some elections around the country, but not in a way that many might think.

Where noncitizens vote

In 16 cities and towns in California, Maryland and Vermont (along with the District of Columbia), noncitizens are allowed to vote in some local elections, such as for school board or city council. Voters in Santa Ana, California, will decide in November whether to allow noncitizens to vote in citywide elections.

In 2022, New York’s State Supreme Court struck down New York City’s 2021 ordinance that allowed noncitizens to vote in local elections, ruling it violated the state constitution. Proponents have argued that people, regardless of citizenship status, should be able to vote on local issues affecting their children and community.

During the first 150 years of the U.S., 40 states at various times permitted noncitizens to vote in elections. That came to a halt in the 1920s when nativism ramped up and states began making voting a privilege for only U.S. citizens.

The number of noncitizen voters has been relatively small, and those voters are never allowed to participate in statewide or national elections. Local election officials maintain separate voter lists to keep noncitizens out of statewide databases.

In Vermont’s local elections in March, 62 noncitizens voted in Burlington, 13 voted in Montpelier and 11 voted in Winooski, all accounting for a fraction of the total votes.

In Takoma Park, Maryland, of the 347 noncitizens who were registered to vote in 2017, just 72 cast a ballot, according to the latest data provided by the city. And in San Francisco, 36 noncitizens registered to vote in 2020 and 31 voted.

Voter turnout among noncitizens is low for two reasons, said Ron Hayduk, a professor of political science at San Francisco State University, who is one of the leading scholars in this area. Many noncitizens in these jurisdictions do not realize they have the right to vote, and many are afraid of deportation or legal issues, he said.

Registration forms in jurisdictions that allow noncitizens to vote in local elections do acknowledge the risks. In San Francisco, local election officials warn that the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement or other agencies could gain access to the city’s registration lists and advise residents to consult an immigration attorney before registering to vote.

“Immigrants were very excited about this new right to vote, they wanted to vote, but many of them did not ultimately register and vote because they were concerned,” Hayduk said.

While there are some noncitizens participating in a handful of local elections, they’re not participating illegally in any substantial way in state and national elections.

Though there’s room for legitimate debate about whether noncitizens should be allowed to vote at the local level, there is no widespread voter fraud among noncitizens nationally, said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

In 2020, federal investigators charged 19 noncitizens for voting in North Carolina elections. A national database run by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, shows that there have been fewer than 100 cases of voter fraud tied to noncitizens since 2002, according to a recent count by The Washington Post.

Trump continues to falsely assert that he was the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election and that he had more of the popular vote in 2016. He has claimed without evidence that voter fraud was to blame, including in part from noncitizens.

With illegal immigration near the top of major issues for voters ahead of November, Trump and his movement sense they have momentum with the public to tie immigration concerns with their continued election claims, Olson said.

It’s a way of keeping Democrats on the back foot, by falsely accusing them of allowing immigrants to come into the country illegally so they can vote, he added.

“The imaginings that there is some sort of plot by an entire major political party is just remarkably evidence-free,” he said.

Fighting ‘the left’

Although voter fraud among noncitizens is not happening widely, states should still add protections to their voting systems to prevent that possibility, said Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican.

Raffensperger has been a major proponent of a Peach State law that requires documentation to verify the citizenship status of voters. In 2022, he announced that an internal audit of Georgia’s voter rolls over the past 25 years found that 1,634 noncitizens had attempted to register to vote, but not a single one cast a ballot.

“I will continue to fight the left on this issue so that only American citizens decide American elections,” Raffensperger wrote in a statement to Stateline.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina and West Virginia are actively considering legislation that would add ballot initiatives for November to prevent noncitizen voting. Those bills are at various points in the legislative process, with many having already passed one chamber.

During a committee hearing last week, Republican Missouri state Sen. Ben Brown said the state’s constitutional language is vague enough to allow cities to let noncitizens vote. While presenting his bill, he cited California’s parallel constitutional wording and how cities such as Oakland and San Francisco allow noncitizens to vote in local elections.

Most state constitutions have similar language around voter eligibility, saying that “every” U.S. citizen that is 18 or over can vote. The proposed amendments usually would change one word, emphasizing that “only” U.S. citizens can vote, eliminating an ambiguity in the text that has left room for cities in several states to allow noncitizen participation in elections.

It’s a “pretty simple” fix, said Jack Tomczak, vice president of outreach for Americans for Citizen Voting, a group that works with state lawmakers to amend their constitutions so that only citizens can vote in state and local elections.

“It does dilute the voice of citizens of this country,” Tomczak said. “And it also dilutes the nature of citizenship.”

This story was originally published in Stateline, which is is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

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Workers at the Washoe County Registrar of Voters counting early ballots in 2020. The process was live-streamed online. (Screengrab via YouTube)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee on Friday announced a “100,000 person strong” program designed to harass election officials and their employees and discredit democracy in Nevada and a dozen other states.

In a statement announcing its Orwellian named “election integrity program,” the RNC said it is “establishing a robust network of monitoring, and protection against any violation or fraud.”

Neither the RNC, Trump, nor anyone else has ever provided any evidence of fraud that would have altered results of the 2020 election that Trump lost to Joe Biden.

“We will aggressively take them to court,” declared Charlie Spies, the RNC’s lead lawyer in the program. 

Again? 

More than five dozen lawsuits filed by Trump and Republicans challenged the 2020 election results, including several suits in Nevada. To reiterate, the existence of significant fraud or illegal voting was not found in a single one of those cases.

“The Democrat tricks from 2020 won’t work this time,”  Spies said.

A few weeks after the Trump-instigated January 6 attempt to steal the election, Spies himself acknowledged lies launched by Trump and his allies about the 2020 election are “simply not true.”

The RNC’s announcement issued Friday is loaded with hyperbole and innuendo about “voter fraud,” and a “rigged” election, but refers to no evidence of either. That’s not surprising. To reiterate, the courts and election officials in state after state, including Nevada’s then-Secretary of State, Republican Barbara Cegavske, found no evidence that the 2020 election was “rigged.”

But the RNC isn’t promising to intimidate election officials and workers in Nevada because of evidence of wrongdoing in 2020. The RNC is launching its effort because Trump controls the RNC, and he told it to.

‘Democrat tricks from 2020’? Do tell.

With Friday’s RNC announcement, the de facto official position of the Republican Party in 2024 is that in 2020, in Nevada and several other states, every election official, including multiple Republican ones, along with thousands of poll workers and election staff in those states, were co-conspirators in an extravagant and sweeping conspiracy to steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump.

Many of the federal judges rejecting suits from Trump and Republicans in 2020 had been appointed by Republican presidents. Several of them had been appointed by Trump. 

Yet for the “Democrat tricks from 2020” to have worked, dozens of state and federal judges would have also had to be in on the conspiracy. 

For the alleged plot – again, the existence of which is now a fundamental premise of the official Republican Party – to succeed, not just judges but thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of people across the country would have had to have been in on it. It would have had to be an unprecedentedly sophisticated bipartisan conspiracy spanning all branches of local, state and federal government in multiple states.

And yet to this day, and despite multiple and ongoing efforts to prove election fraud by everyone from Trump’s ever-changing stable of quack lawyers to the RNC to Fox News to the My Pillow guy, not a single one of the thousands and thousands of people who would have had to participate in the “Democrat tricks” have confirmed any Republican allegations of the alleged vast conspiracy.

Because there was no conspiracy. 

There was an election. 

Trump lost.

Whether Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, who co-chairs the RNC, or Sigal Chattah, who is Nevada’s Republican Committeewoman, or any of the other RNC’s leaders, members and/or staffers sincerely believe the fantasy of the “stolen” 2020 election – in other words, if they have genuinely been brainwashed into delusion – is irrelevant. The delusion is now official RNC policy. Their job is to act accordingly. And that job, specifically, is “a 100,000 person strong” effort to belittle and discredit democracy.

To belabor the obvious, the last thing Trump wants to do is protect the integrity of elections. He is dedicated to doing the opposite of that.

He relentlessly attacked the election process in the years leading up to the 2020 election in an attempt to discredit the results even before any votes had been cast, and lied about the process on election night, in an attempt to stop votes from being counted.

After all the votes had been counted he continued to tell lies about the election, and instigated the January 6 insurrection. 

When that failed, he started running for president again. He’s been lying about the 2020 election and, in a repeat of his behavior prior to the 2020 election, trying to discredit the 2024 results in advance.

The RNC’s announcement Friday is not an “election integrity program.” It’s just an extension of Trump’s attacks on democracy and penchant for cheating.

How ugly will it get in Nevada?

Trump’s adoring flock continues to be mesmerized by his schtick. Pandering to that flock, Republican elected officials and office-seekers, even those who did not deny the 2020 election results, have effectively condoned Trump’s war on democracy by citing “concerns” in some segments of the public about the 2020 election – concerns that were fabricated and spread by Trump.

Those Republican elected officials and office-seekers are implying, with no evidence, that somehow some vague something must have been wrong.

If not election deniers, they are election-denier-adjacent. They are irresponsibly enabling and lending credibility to Trump’s effort to end democracy. Their behavior is despicable, cowardly, and an ongoing threat to the nation and its people.

Nevada Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo is a good example of this (although most of the Nevada press doesn’t seem to care much).

If Lombardo shows the same blithe disregard when the RNC begins intimidating Nevada election workers, filing more nuisance Nevada lawsuits in which it compares apples to orangutans, and spreading lies to undermine his constituents’ faith in the same election system by which he obtained his job, he’ll be enabling and empowering all that as well.

By looking the other way, Lombardo would also be doing his bit to help Trump nullify the votes of Nevadans in 2024, as Trump tried to do after the 2020 election.

Lara Trump as co-chair of the RNC, Michael McDonald and fellow indicted election deniers in charge of the Republican Party in Nevada, Trump’s cavalcade of weirdo lawyers … given the chuckleheads who will be involved, it’s tempting, maybe even warranted, to speculate that Trump’s lawyers and the teams of people he enlists to harass election officials and undermine democracy in Nevada won’t be any more competent in 2024 than they in were 2020, and equally ineffective at overturning legitimate election results.

But even in failing, their efforts can be pernicious, as evidenced in multiple states, most notably the pain and suffering Trump and his minions cruelly inflicted on Georgia election workers Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman.

How ugly will it get in Nevada? Especially if Lombardo, Rep. Mark Amodei, and other Nevada Republican elected officials and candidates go along to get along with Trump? We’re about to find out.

A version of this column originally appeared in the Daily Current newsletter, which is free and which you can subscribe to here.

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President Joe Biden and Congressman Jim Clyburn sit together at the South Carolina Democratic Party’s fundraising dinner Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024, at the State Fairgrounds in Columbia, S.C. (Mary Ann Chastain/ Special to the SC Daily Gazette)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

COLUMBIA — President Joe Biden cruised to an expected victory Saturday in Democrats’ first recognized contest of 2024, following a month-long push by the president and his proxies to drive up turnout after the party put South Carolina first on the official voting calendar.

With two-thirds of the votes in, Biden was winning with 97% of them.

“I want to let you guys know, South Carolina, tonight is our night,” state Democratic Party Chairwoman Christale Spain told the crowd. “For the first time, Southern voters, Black voters and rural voters have had the chance to have their voices heard first.”

Biden called in to his victory party from Los Angeles.

U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, whose 2020 endorsement catapulted Biden to the White House, held his cellphone up to a microphone, but reporters stationed in the back couldn’t hear what the president said.

“In 2020, it was the voters of South Carolina who proved the pundits wrong, breathed new life into our campaign and set us on the path to winning the presidency,” Biden said in a statement. “Now, in 2024, the people of South Carolina have spoken again, and I have no doubt that you have set us on the path to winning the presidency again and making Donald Trump a loser again.”

The result of Democrats’ “first-in-the-nation” presidential primary was never in doubt, with Biden running against two extreme-long-shot candidates: U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson. Even when Phillips spoke to South Carolina Democrats, he said he fully expected 95% of the vote would go to Biden.

Still, Democratic officials and the Biden campaign went all out with get-out-the-vote efforts that focused on energizing Black voters, who make up a large part of South Carolina’s Democratic base. The party touted that a “six-figure” investment in radio, digital and outdoor advertising in South Carolina represented its earliest ever spending during a presidential contest on outreach to young, rural and Black voters.

Biden is scheduled to hold a campaign event in Las Vegas Sunday in advance of the state’s Democratic presidential primary Tuesday.

The post Biden easily wins South Carolina Democratic primary appeared first on Nevada Current.

A screenshot from a Joe Lombardo gubernatorial campaign ad called "Protect."

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

The Nevada Commission on Ethics in a 4-2 vote Tuesday determined Gov. Joe Lombardo willfully violated the law by featuring his Clark County sheriff’s badge and wearing his Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department uniform in ads, social media and other materials during his campaign for governor.

The commission had the option to censure, reprimand, or admonish Lombardo. It chose a censure, the most severe sanction of the three. The commission also imposed a $20,000 fine.

Lombardo did not attend the hearing.

“Although we’re gratified that the Commission did not impose the $1.6M+ fine sought by the Executive Director, we’re disappointed in certain aspects of the Commission’s ruling and are in the process of considering all options,” Lombardo’s attorney, Sam Mirkovich of Campbell and Williams, said in a statement emailed to the Current.

The commission granted summary judgment against Lombardo on multiple violations of NRS 281A.400(7), which prohibits officials from using governmental time, property or equipment in campaign efforts.

But it voted Lombardo did not violate NRS 281A.400(2), which prohibits an official from using his position to secure or grant unwarranted privileges, preferences or advantages to benefit himself, or a business entity in which he has a financial interest, or any person to whom he has a commitment in a private capacity.

Two commission members recently appointed by Lombardo – John Moran III and Stan Olsen – cast the only votes against the censure and $20,000 fine, which was far less than the $1.6 million requested by Ethics Commission Executive Director Ross Armstrong for more than 60 separate violations.

“A civil penalty in this amount or even near this amount, would in fact be unprecedented. However, (Lombardo’s) conduct in these matters was unprecedented and therefore requires an equivalent penalty,” Ethics Commission Associate Counsel Elizabeth Bassett asserted during the hearing. “The fines and other penalties imposed by the commission for previous violations of the same ethics law clearly did not deter similar repeated violations by subject.”

“The evidence shows the subject was aware of the requirements of the ethics law and chose to violate the law, nonetheless,” displaying a “knowing and reckless disregard of the ethics law,” Bassett argued.

In September 2021, the commission notified Lombardo his gubernatorial campaign was violating ethics laws by using images of his badge and uniform in materials and ads for the Republican primary, but Lombardo persisted.

“At that point, Governor Lombardo’s position was ‘If I take them down, it’s going to be viewed as a tacit admission,’” Lombardo’s attorney J. Colby Williams said when asked why the gubernatorial campaign didn’t cease the violations when notified.

Lombardo rejected offers to settle the case “for much less” than the requested fine, Bassett said.

Williams argued the proposed fine of more than $1.6 million amounted to “inconsistent treatment” because other law enforcement officials have not been similarly treated. He also said the proposed fine was unconstitutional because it violates the excessive fines clause of the state and federal constitutions.

“The disposition of the matter must bear a reasonable relationship to the severity of the violation or alleged violation,” he noted.

Williams asserted Lombardo did not require his officers to turn out for campaign events in uniform, which he said would have been a violation of the federal Hatch Act. The Hatch Act prohibits certain partisan political activity by individuals principally employed by agencies funded in whole or in part by federal loans or grants, including law enforcement.

Williams suggested the ethics commission consider the Hatch Act in deliberations, rather than Nevada ethics law, which he said was vague.

One campaign violation identified in the commission’s exhibits is an advertisement titled “Protect.” One of the first shots in the 90-second ad is of a law enforcement badge. It also features long shots of Lombardo walking – first in his Metro uniform but also in two separate sets of civilian clothes with his badge clearly visible on his belt.

Williams also argued Lombardo’s use of his badge and police uniform in his campaign for governor was a “form of First Amendment expression.”

“He has a First Amendment right to say ‘I am the sheriff of Clark County.’” Bassett countered. “He has a First Amendment right to say, ‘Here’s all the amazing things I’ve done.’ He can say it as much as he wants and he can shout it from the rooftops. He is not allowed to use government property.”

Williams stated the commission presented no evidence that Lombardo’s actions amounted to an “unwarranted advantage” during the race for governor, noting his image was also distributed by media and his opponent.

“Undoubtedly, we hoped it would be beneficial with the public,” he said of Lombardo’s position as sheriff. “But there are undoubtedly members of the public that do not look at the uniform and look at the badge and say ‘Public trust. They’re there to protect me.’  A lot of people feel the opposite way about law enforcement.”

But Bassett said Williams’ interpretation of unwarranted advantage missed the mark, noting the statute required no proof that the use of Lombardo’s official position in his gubernatorial campaign was a benefit.

“The unwarranted advantage is giving the public and the voters the improper and incorrect impression that the subject is being endorsed by a government agency by using government property in campaigns,” she said.

Moran, who once served as chairman of the ethics commission, questioned how Lombardo was expected to shed the mantle of sheriff while campaigning.

“I’m trying to understand an unwarranted advantage because this is a sitting sheriff. That’s his job while he’s campaigning for a different office,” he said.

Commissioner Teresa Lowry noted there’s no requirement in the law that the sheriff wear his uniform all the time.

Correction: The original version of this story reported the vote was 5-2. It was 4-2.  Member Barbara Gruenewald was on the review panel and was not permitted to vote.

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Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo won the Republican primary for governor with 38% of the vote. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Gov. Joe Lombardo on Wednesday announced the appointment of a former police officer and the grandson of a former sheriff to the Nevada Commission on Ethics. The announcement comes just days before Lombardo is set to appear before the commission on allegations he violated ethics laws by using his sheriff’s badge and uniform during his 2022 campaign for governor.

Ethics Commission Executive Director Ross Armstrong alleges Lombardo used his position “to secure or grant unwarranted privileges, preferences or advantages to benefit himself, any business entity in which he has a significant pecuniary interest, or any person to whom he has a commitment in a private capacity,” a violation of state law. Lombardo is also alleged to have used “governmental time, property or equipment or other facility to benefit his significant personal or pecuniary interest or that of a person to whom he is a commitment in a private capacity.”

Armstrong wants the commission to censure Lombardo, impose a civil penalty of $1.67 million, and add an ethics officer to the governor’s office. A hearing is scheduled Tuesday morning.

The governor, who splits appointments of the commission’s eight members with the Legislature, appointed Stan Olsen, a former police officer for the City of Henderson and Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Olsen was appointed in 2010 to serve one term in the Nevada State Senate. Most recently, Olsen served as deputy police chief in Kauai, Hawaii, but resigned last year after the TSA discovered his department-issued gun in a carry-on bag at the airport. Olsen was not cited.

Lombardo also appointed John Moran III, the grandson of former Clark County Sheriff John Moran. Moran III is a lawyer with Clark Hill, a previous chair of the Ethics Commission, and a former Nevada System of Higher Education regent.

Olsen and Moran’s terms began July 1, according to the commission’s website, though their appointments were only publicly announced this week. Former Assemblyman James Oscarson’s term on the commission ended June 30, and an additional seat on the commission had been vacant.

Lombardo’s hearing before the ethics commission was originally set for June 13 but postponed upon request of the governor, who argued that all members of the commission should be present.

The governor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the optics of appointing members with links to law enforcement to the commission days before he appears on charges related to his former role as sheriff.

Commission Chair Kim Wallin declined to comment on the governor’s appointments.

The post Lombardo announces Ethics Commission appointments days before his ethics hearing appeared first on Nevada Current.

Members of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State spoke on the importance of defeating election deniers on the ballot this year. Clockwise from top left: DASS executive director Kim Rogers, Jena Griswold (CO), Adrian Fontes (AZ), and Cisco Aguilar (NV).

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Voters in Nevada, along with other battleground states including Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico and Arizona, rejected election deniers running to become secretaries of state.

Members of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, including Cisco Aguilar who was recently elected in Nevada, spoke during a virtual press conference Tuesday about the importance of preventing those promoting conspiracy theories from obtaining the office.

Aguilar defeated Jim Marchant, who helped organize the America First Secretary of State Coalition, which sought to elect candidates to the office in order to oversee, and influence, the 2024 election.

Marchant garnered national attention for his full-throated support of former President Donald Trump’s baseless allegations of election fraud.

Marchant in October asserted that “when my coalition of secretary of state candidates around the country get elected we’re going to fix the whole country and President Trump is going to be president again in 2024.”

Aguilar called it a “great honor to defeat and take out the leader of the America First coalition.”

“He was out there peddling lies and misinformation to voters across the state and also across America, which was scary,” he said. “What he was doing was detrimental to the future of our country.”

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who also chairs the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, said the election results rebuffed national polls that incorrectly indicated voters weren’t prioritizing democracy.

“You heard national pundits say over and over democracy was not top of mind,” she said. “Many of our races were predicted as a long shot. In the rest of the nation, the first election since Donald Trump tried to steal the presidency, the country lived up to its promise and its future. Democracy won the midterm elections.”

She added that not only were election deniers defeated in every battleground state, Democratic candidates also did better than other top-of-the-ticket candidates such as senators and governors.

Democratic incumbent Gov. Steve Sisolak, who lost his re-election, received 474,446 votes against Republican Sheriff Joe Lombardo, who garnered 490,431 votes.

Aguilar won 489,911 votes.

Not only are the election results a rejection of Trump, who endorsed Marchant, it shows Nevadans don’t support an extremist agenda based on conspiracy theories, Aguilar said.

“The chair of the America First coalition was sharing and peddling his ideas and policies and. Nevadans outright rejected him,” he said. “The fact that Trump’s own crony in Nevada didn’t work, I don’t see how it works in the future. People are tired of chaos.”

It wasn’t just in Nevada where Republicans and nonpartisans supported Democratic candidates.

Democrat Adrian Fontes, who recently won his election in Arizona, said Democrats only make up 30% of registered voters, meaning independent and Republican voters had to support democratic candidates.

Fontes defeated Mark Finchem, a member of the far-right extremist group Oath Keepers who attended the Jan. 6 insurrection.

““They understand it was not about politics,” Fontes said. “It was about country before party.”

In addition to safeguarding democracy and attempts to subvert elections, Aguilar said the newly elected secretaries of state can work to expand access to the ballot box and examine what does and doesn’t work for voters.

“The greatest example is this election cycle,” he said. “The first day of our two weeks of early voting, on the first day there was a massive dust storm throughout the (Las Vegas). People didn’t show up to vote in person because it wasn’t convenient for them. Then you look at the actual election day. We had a massive snow storm in northern Nevada. We had rain and wind in southern Nevada. Weather had an impact on turnout but people had options to vote and express their opinion of what they want to see in the future.”

He said he plans to work with the Legislature, which Democrats continue to control after last week’s election, in order to increase voter access. Aguilar also wants to introduce legislation criminalizing attacks against election workers

Though election deniers lost in 2022, Griswold warned they will more than likely resurface ahead of the 2024 election.

“While we celebrate our success in the midterms, I think we are all too aware that those same forces that were willing to try to attack the right to vote, to try to compromise across the country, will likely still be with us in 2024,” Griswold said.

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The Regional Justice Center in downtown Las Vegas. (Photo by Ronda Churchill)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Unlike 2020, when public defenders dominated a slate of Clark County judicial races, this year’s battles for the bench produced victors from a variety of legal sectors. 

In the race for Las Vegas Justice Court Dept. 13, deputy public defender Rebecca Saxe narrowly defeated longtime Justice of the Peace Suzan Baucum.

In the waning days of the campaign, Baucum appeared in an endorsement photo for Joe Lombardo, the Republican candidate who went on to win the election for governor. The Culinary Union, which had endorsed both Baucum and Saxe in the nonpartisan race, rescinded its endorsement of Baucum because of her visible support of a partisan candidate.  

Baucum, who raised almost twice as much in campaign contributions as her opponent, has not responded to requests for comment about her plans.

Attorney Jessica Goodey handily defeated former Judge Bill Gonzalez in the race for Las Vegas Justice Court Dept. 6. Goodey says she ran for the seat because she was frustrated by the slow pace of civil cases. 

In the race for Las Vegas Justice Court Dept 7, attorney Amy Wilson defeated deputy public defender Max Berkley by 12 percentage points. Berkley, the son of former U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, raised $320,000 compared to Wilson’s $89,000.

Incumbent Justice of the Peace Joe Bonaventure easily defeated prosecutor Danielle “Pieper” Chio in the race for Dept. 9. 

Justice of the Peace Cybill Dotson took the bench a year ago after she was appointed by the Clark County Commission to fill the vacancy left by former Justice of the Peace Melanie Tobiasson’s resignation. Dotson lost by nine percentage points to prosecutor Noreen Demonte in the race for Dept 10.

Longtime Family Court official Mari Parlade prevailed in a five-way race for Family Court A. 

District Court Judge Maria Gall, appointed by Gov. Steve Sisolak this year, handily defeated former Nevada regent James Dean Leavitt. Leavit called Gall’s appointment just months before the election “shameless” and “pure political pandering” by Sisolak. 

Another Sisolak appointee, Judge Ellie Roohani, lost to attorney Anna Albertson. Roohani, a former federal prosecutor, had no experience in district court before taking the bench. 

Public defender Jennifer Schwartz prevailed in a three-way race with attorney Adam Ganz and prosecutor Lindsey Moors for Clark County District Court Department 17. The special election was held to fill the vacancy created by Judge William Voy’s sudden resignation in June. 

In the only contested race on the Nevada Court of Appeals, deputy public defender Deborah Westbrook defeated Judge Rhonda Forsberg, who will remain on the Family Court bench. 

As a chief deputy public defender, Westbrook specialized in appeals work.  

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Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto walks offstage at the Día De Muertos Camino al Mictlan festival at Freedom Park on November 2 in Las Vegas. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

In a nailbiter watched all over the country, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto prevailed over challenger Republican Adam Laxalt and secured Democratic control of the U.S. Senate in the process.

Cortez Masto was considered by many to be one of the most vulnerable U.S. senators up for reelection this year, and polls throughout the election cycle characterized the race as a toss up. When the race was called Saturday, Cortez Masto led Laxalt by half a percentage point, or roughly 5,000 votes with uncounted votes from the state’s two urban centers expected to break in her favor.

The call came after a mail ballot vote drop from Clark County, Nevada’s most populous county. The Cortez Masto campaign announced she will speak about the “historic victory” Sunday morning.

The Nevada race was of one of two races that had not been decided as of Friday, and that would decide control of the U.S. Senate, the other being Georgia. Each is currently held by Democrats, and Democrats had to retain one of them or lose control of the Senate to Republicans. 

Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly was declared the winner in Arizona. That victory, combined with a Cortez Masto win in Nevada, assured that Democrats would retain at least 50 seats in the Senate – enough to control with tie-breaking votes cast by Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. Democrats have a chance to add an additional seat in Georgia’s upcoming Dec. 6 runoff between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker.

Cortez Masto’s win is part of a mixed bag of outcomes for Democrats in the Silver State. Voters rejected Democratic incumbent Gov. Steve Sisolak and elected Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo to the office. But they backed Democrats in the secretary of state, attorney general and treasurer races, as well as in three competitive House seats held by incumbent Democrats.

The outcome also marks the second high-profile loss for Laxalt, who unsuccessfully ran for governor against Steve Sisolak in 2018.

Laxalt is the Reno-born, Virginia-raised grandson of a former Nevada senator. He served one term as Nevada attorney general when he was elected in 2014 as part of a massive statewide red wave. In 2020, he was state co-chair of President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign. In that role he pedaled unfounded voter fraud conspiracy theories and filed lawsuits that were thrown out in court.

Laxalt on his Senate campaign trail made comments about working on a “litigation strategy” and “filing lawsuits early.” Friday afternoon, following a Daily Mail report that the Laxalt campaign was preparing for defeat, Laxalt tweeted that the article was “totally and completely false.” By Friday night, he had acknowledged on the social media site that the window for victory was narrowing.

On the campaign trail, Cortez Masto attacked Laxalt for stance against abortion rights and his connections to “the Big Lie,” political extremism and big oil. On his end, Laxalt hammered Cortez Masto on economic issues, specifically inflation, and tied the first-term senator to President Joe Biden.

The post With Cortez Masto’s victory, Democrats retain control of U.S. Senate appeared first on Nevada Current.

Joe Lombardo at an event in April 2022; Steve Sisolak speaking to the press in Carson City in 2019. (Photos: Ronda Churchhill, Jeniffer Solis)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Nevada Democrat Steve Sisolak will be a one-term governor, unofficial results now show.

Sisolak is on track to be defeated by Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo. Sisolak was trailing Lombardo by 2.2 points – roughly 21,000 votes — on Friday.

“While votes are still coming in – and we need every ballot tallied and every voice heard – it appears we will fall a percentage point or so short of winning,” read a statement released by Sisolak. “Obviously that is not the outcome I want, but I believe in our election system, in democracy and honoring the will of Nevada voters. So whether you voted for me or Sheriff Lombardo, it is important that we now come together to continue moving the state forward. That is why I reached out to the Sheriff to wish him success.”

Sisolak will likely be the only incumbent governor nationwide to lose their seat, and Nevada will be the only blue-to-red governor flip this midterm election. Gubernatorial races in Arizona and Alaska have not yet been called, but Alaska’s Republican incumbent seems poised to win and no incumbent is running in Arizona. Democrats have flipped two governorships – in Massachusetts and Maryland. In both of those states, the Republican incumbent did not run for reelection.

Republican Stavros Anthony is also projected to win against Democrat Lisa Cano Burkhead, who Sisolak appointed to the position in 2021 after Kate Marshall resigned to take a job with the Biden administration. Anthony, a retired police officer, currently sits on Las Vegas City Council.

Many Nevada voters split their ticket, electing new Republicans into the state’s top two constitutional offices but backing Democrats in the secretary of state, attorney general and treasurer races. The hotly contested U.S. Senate race between Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto and Republican Adam Laxalt is still too close to call.

With his 2018 win over then-Attorney General Laxalt, Sisolak became the first Democratic governor elected in Nevada since 1994.

Sisolak’s loss this year strips Democrats of their state government trifecta, which the party took advantage of to raise the minimum wage, pass criminal justice reform, expand voter access and redraw political maps that benefit them.

The Nevada State Legislature is projected to continue having a Democratic majority in both chambers.

Lombardo prevailed over a crowded Republican primary that included former U.S. Sen. Dean Heller and Reno attorney Joey Gilbert, who without evidence claimed election fraud after losing. Lombardo was quickly seen by Democrats as the biggest threat in a statewide race because he had name recognition in Southern Nevada but no political background to criticize.

It appears their fears were well founded.

As governor, Sisolak piloted the uncharted waters of COVID-19  – a pandemic that closed the Las Vegas Strip for the first time since President John F. Kennedy’s funeral in 1963. On the campaign trail, Lombardo routinely criticized Sisolak for his handling of the covid pandemic.

Sisolak attempted to counter the criticisms with reminders that the resort industry pushed him to shut down the Strip.

“They made it through the recession. They made it through 1 October. They knew if this got as bad as people were saying it was going to get and we’re having dozens of people dying in properties, they didn’t think they’d ever come back from that, in terms of being a tourist capital,” he told the Current in an interview last month.

Sisolak promised “no new taxes” during his reelection campaign, but he would not rule out tweaking the state’s archaic property tax calculation, lifting caps put in place 20 years ago, and lowering the sales tax rate while broadening the base. Before he was governor, Sisolak as chair of the powerful Clark County Commission oversaw the creation of the legal cannabis industry and championed $750 million in public funding for a football stadium.

Lombardo’s gubernatorial campaign website states he “will never raise taxes.”

Lombardo was endorsed by former President Donald Trump, who called Nevada a “cesspool of crime” at a rally in rural Nevada. On his end, Lombardo has tried to characterize rising crime as a symptom of failed Democratic policies set at the state level, not his leadership as the sheriff of the most populous county in the state.

Like moderate conservative candidates across the country have done in campaigns, Lombardo walked a fine line between embracing Trump (so as not to lose the Republican base) while tempering enthusiasm for the former president (to appeal to moderates).

During the only gubernatorial debate of the election cycle, Lombardo called Trump a “sound president” but declined to say he was a great one, saying, “I wouldn’t use that adjective. I wouldn’t say great.” Later that day, Lombardo’s campaign issued a statement praising Trump.

Lombardo’s statements on abortion also evolved over time.

He said he would govern through “a pro-life lens,” and eliminate Sisolak’s executive order protecting people seeking abortions in Nevada and the medical professionals who perform them. He later backed off and said he would not strike the order. He has also backed off his previous support for a federal ban on abortions after 13 weeks gestation.  

“I thought about it more and evaluated. Not my political position or my campaign. I just thought about it more,” he said during a debate.

The post After backing Dems in other statewide races, Nevada voters elect Lombardo over Sisolak appeared first on Nevada Current.

Cisco Aguilar, left, repeatedly said Jim Marchant, right, was "not a serious leader, but the threat he represents is very serious.” (Photos: Jeniffer Solis; Marchant campaign)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Republican Jim Marchant, an election denier who warned he would “fix” the 2024 presidential election, is on track to lose his bid for secretary of state against Democrat Cisco Aguilar.

Marchant initially had a lead in the race, but that vanished after additional voting results were released Thursday, and Aguilar’s lead only grew after Clark County released a batch of votes Friday. With 93% of the vote counted, Aguilar had a nearly 14,000 vote lead over Marchant.

In a statement Friday night, Aguilar said it is the “honor of my life to be Nevada’s next Secretary of State and the first Latino to serve in this role,” and stressed the importance of ongoing efforts “to reject extremism and those who threaten our democracy.” 

Aguilar, a former staffer for Sen. Harry Reid who also served on the Nevada Athletic Commission for eight years, repeatedly said while campaigning that Marchant was “not a serious leader, but the threat he represents is very serious.”

Marchant, who garnered national attention for his full-throated support of former President Donald Trump and his baseless allegations of election fraud, was part of the America First Secretary of State Coalition. 

The group featured several candidates for secretary of state offices across the country running on false claims around the 2020 election and vowing to ensure Republican victories in 2024. Two of those candidates have been defeated, in Michigan and Minnesota. Another candidate, Republican Mark Finchem in Arizona, is trailing his Democratic opponent Adrian Fontes, in a race that had not yet been decided as of Friday night.

While speaking alongside Trump at a rally in Minden in October, Marchant told the crowd “when my coalition of secretary of state candidates around the country get elected we’re going to fix the whole country and President Trump is going to be president again in 2024.” 

Ahead of the election, Aguilar warned voters that Marchant was “irresponsible and dangerous” and that if elected, Marchant and like-minded election deniers would “tear down the system because they don’t like it and it hasn’t benefited them.”

“All Nevadans will suffer because of him. Republicans… Nonpartisan. Democrats,” Aguilar said in an interview in October. Because there will be no voter confidence in the process because he is running the elections.”

Many Republicans, including Kristopher Dahir, who ran against Marchant in the primary, endorsed Aguilar. In an op-ed in the Reno Gazette Journal, Dahir warned against electing those who “would tear down our electoral process.” 

Marchant was elected to the state Assembly in 2016 and served one term, but despite being elected to public office Marchant has falsely claimed there hasn’t been a fair election in Nevada since 2008.

His potential role as the state’s top election official makes his promotion of unfounded voter fraud conspiracies especially significant.

Marchant ran against U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford in 2020 and lost. Following his loss, he filed a lawsuit challenging the election results. That lawsuit was dismissed.

In December 2020, Marchant stood next to Nevada’s fake electors as they signed phony electoral college certificates that were sent to Congress, an action that would later be revealed as part of the plan hatched by Trump’s legal advisors to stop Joe Biden’s certification as president on Jan. 6, 2021.

Ahead of this year’s midterm elections, Marchant tried to convince several rural counties, including Nye County, to switch to hand-counting paper ballots alleging it would protect against unfounded claims of voter fraud.

While campaigning for office, Marchant said he wanted to get rid of early voting, despite his own use of early voting.

Aguilar has said his first legislative priority would be to introduce a bill, similar to one seen in Colorado, to criminalize attacks against election workers.

The post In SOS race, Aguilar on track to beat election denier who wanted to be in charge of elections appeared first on Nevada Current.