Democratic Committees Seek To Intervene in GOP Poll Worker Lawsuit in Nevada
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Monday, Oct, 31, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit brought by Republicans demanding information for the names and political party affiliations of poll workers in Clark County, Nevada. Notably, the Republicans filed this lawsuit during a time in which they continue to spread the “Big Lie” and put election workers at risk as threats become more and more prominent. The Republican National Committee (RNC) contends that disclosing poll workers’ names and affiliations “does not implicate anything more than nontrivial privacy interests and does not create any realistic risk of harassment or other stigmatization.”
On Oct. 5, the parties entered an agreement in which Clark County consented to providing the RNC with the “scheduled roster for all early voting and general election polling locations in Clark County, including manual signature verification and counting board teams.” The roster “will include the political party affiliation and job title/task assignment for all poll workers at each polling location” and the RNC agreed to not “seek the names of the poll workers.” Despite this stipulation, the RNC filed a motion to unpause the case and requested a writ of mandamus (a court order compelling a party to take a certain action) to require the Clark County Board of Elections to add more Republicans to its signature verification board (a bipartisan board whose members verify if a signature on a mail-in ballot is valid if it cannot be discerned by a computer), a notably broader request than the one in their original lawsuit seeking public records. In response to this, the DCCC and DSCC filed a motion to intervene “because the RNC’s application seeks to impose a harmful misunderstanding of a statute that if adopted, threatens to complicate and disrupt election administration in Nevada.” In their motion, the Democratic committees argue that they have “a significantly protectable interest in preventing disruptive behavior at polling sites and election offices in Nevada.” The DCCC and DSCC also assert that, despite the Republicans’ objections over the signature verification board, such a board does not exist under Nevada law and therefore is not subject to the same partisan composition requirements as other election workers. The Democratic groups state that individuals tasked with verifying signatures this election cycle are “temporary staff” hired by the county to assist with the signature verification process in response to an anticipated influx of mail-in ballots.