Nevada Court Denies GOP “Signature Verification Board” Request
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Thursday, Nov. 3, a Nevada court denied the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) request to add more Republican members to Clark County, Nevada’s “signature verification board.” The RNC’s lawsuit originally demanded information for the names and political party affiliations of poll workers in Clark County, Nevada. This conflict was nearly resolved when the parties entered an agreement on Oct. 5 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.” However, on Oct. 27, the RNC filed a motion to unpause the case and requested the court address a separate issue — to require the Clark County Board of Elections to add more Republicans to its “signature verification board” — a notably broader request than the one in their original lawsuit seeking public records. Democratic groups filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit, pointing out that the “board” mentioned by the RNC is actually just “temporary staff” hired by the county to assist with the signature verification process in response to an anticipated influx of mail-in ballots.
In denying the RNC’s request, the court found “that it is a big stretch to classify temporary employees as board members on a board that the County Registrar never created.” Since the temporary employees “do not constitute a ‘board,’” the state court judge found that Nevada law regarding the partisan affiliations of election workers does not apply. The judge also rejected the RNC’s request to unpause the case. This order comes after Republicans have sued in jurisdictions across the country raising allegations of “unequal” partisan composition of election workers in an apparent attempt to undermine the electoral process. Furthermore, Republicans continue to file such lawsuits accusing counties of wrongdoing in a time in which threats to election workers are on the rise throughout the country and the country faces a poll worker shortage.