Trump Campaign Sues Nevada Over Universal Vote-by-Mail Law

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee sued to block Nevada’s plan to send mail-in ballots to all registered voters as a result of the pandemic, saying it violates federal law and opens the door to massive fraud.

The plan -- passed by the state legislature on Sunday -- will lead to ballots being sent to incorrect addresses and force election officials to count votes that may have been sent after Election Day because the prepaid envelopes required under the new law won’t be postmarked, according to the complaint filed late Tuesday in federal court in Las Vegas.

Trump has repeatedly said without evidence that mail-in ballots will lead to widespread voter fraud, musing that the November election should be delayed and raising fears that he may contest the results. Election experts have said mail-in voting is safe and that examples of fraud are rare. The president, who has also filed suit against changes to Pennsylvania’s election process, has more recently distinguished between states. On Tuesday, he called mail-in voting in Florida, a crucial swing state he won in 2016, “safe and secure” but predicted “disaster” in Nevada, which he lost in the last election.

“Democrats know President Trump is gaining ground in Nevada, so they fully and fundamentally overhauled Nevada’s election laws in a rushed 72-hour attempt to rig the election,” Jenna Ellis, senior legal adviser for the campaign, said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, the Republican election official named in the suit, declined to comment.

Lawsuit ‘Sad’

Marc Elias, a lawyer who has represented the national Democratic party in election lawsuits across the U.S., including in Nevada, called the lawsuit frivolous and “sad.”

“The only positive step is that in it Trump’s lawyers admit Congress alone sets Election Day and no one except Congress can change the date,” Elias said in an email, citing several paragraphs about federal election rules found in the campaign’s complaint.

The complaint cites problems Nevada allegedly had with mail-in ballots during its June primary, when the state moved to widespread mail-in voting for the first time. The suit quotes one unnamed Clark County voter who claimed to have found “about a dozen ballots pinned to the complex’s bulletin board or otherwise thrown around” and others in the trash.

“Another resident received a ballot at her home addressed to her deceased mother,” the campaign said in the complaint.

Alleging other states have encountered similar problems, the campaign and the RNC said more than 800 mail-in ballots had to be set aside in Paterson, New Jersey, after a May city council election “due to suspicion that they were gathered illegally,” including hundreds of ballots that were reportedly collected from the same mailbox.

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