* Ya know how people say, “I hate to say I told you so”? Yeah, that’s not me. I enjoy saying it.
* And I told you the Nevada Republican Party and Republican National Committeewoman Sigal Chattah were going to try to “spin” the low turnout in last week’s primary elections as something to cheer.
* As I wrote a week ago: “Of course, (Chattah) and the GOP are going to be taking bows and spinning the dismal turnout as somehow successful.”
* And right on cue this morning, Chattah boastfully twit-tweeted: “More Republicans by percentage voted in Nevada than Democrats.”
* Reminds me of the old saying: “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.”
* Yes, more Republicans voted in the primary “BY PERCENTAGE” than Democrats. But two things…
* First, the raw numbers – which is how you win elections – show that just over 109,000 Democrats voted compared to around 93,000 Republicans.
* You have to be using “fuzzy math” to spin that as a victory for Republicans. Percentages don’t matter. Raw numbers matter.
* Secondly, we’re talking about a primary here.
* Republicans had contested primaries in all the top races – U.S. Senate and the three Clark County congressional districts. The Democrat incumbents in all four of those races had virtually no competition.
* So it stands to reason that a higher “percentage” of Republicans would vote in the primary compared to the Democrats. Still, more Democrats overall voted than Republicans.
* When KTNV Channel 13 senior reporter Steve Sebelius called Chattah out for her weak command of the stats and numbers, her response was to call him a “Bozo.”
* Dumb, dumb, dumb media relations for a GOP leader and the very definition of the pot calling the kettle black.
* In addition, turnout among non-partisan voters – just over 5 percent – is what drove total turnout down to under 20 percent.
* Their ballots only included non-partisan local and judicial races. So no surprise that few of them cast ballots in the primary. The general election will be much different.
* Still, because so many people are being registered “non-partisan” at the DMV and other government offices – many without even knowing they’d been registered – the turnout percentage for non-partisan voters in November will still be less than partisan turnout.
* Just because you register someone to vote doesn’t mean they’ll actually cast a ballot.
* One last point: Mail-in ballots do NOT increase turnout.
* That was an argument made by Democrats to excuse changing Nevada’s election law to require a mail-in ballot be automatically mailed to every active registered voter whether they requested one or not.
* We were told that making it easier to vote would increase participation. Well, since that law was passed by the Legislature in 2021, we’ve seen that argument proven to be false.
* Yes, more people are voting by mail than before. However, they ALWAYS had the option even before the law changed. They just had to pro-actively REQUEST a mail-in ballot.
* Widespread mail-in balloting hasn’t increased voter participation. It’s only increased the number of people who vote by mail. Returning to the “old” system won’t mean those choosing to vote by mail won’t be able to. They’d simply have to request it.
* Bottom line…
* Nevada Republicans blew it big time by not using the Presidential Preference Primary (PPP) back in February to field test their vaunted “Bank Your Vote” program. And the program obviously failed miserably in the primary.
* But there’s still time for them to get their act together before the November general election.
* Oh, and yes, pigs will fly.
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“An illegal alien is not a ‘migrant,’ no more than a dude in a dress is a ‘woman.’ When will corporate media stop playing along with the madness of the left?” – James Woods
Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, publisher of Nevada News & Views and blogs at MuthsTruths.com. His views are his own.