Nevada GOP’s “Stolen Valor” Claim on Voter File Clean-Up

(Chuck Muth) – Ronald Reagan once famously said, “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.”

Yesterday it was announced that the Clark County Registrar of Voters (ROV) had removed over 90,000 voters from its “active” voter rolls and changed their status to “inactive.”

This is a really big deal, as those voters will NOT automatically receive mail-in ballots for the November election.  Jesse Waters even noted it on FOX News last night.

And while our Pigpen Project certainly has played significant a part in the effort to clean the voter rolls this year, the truth is the Clark County ROV deserves the lion’s share of credit for yesterday’s announcement.

Last month, the ROV sent confirmation postcards to over 100,000 voters whose ballots had been returned from the February Presidential Preference Primary and the June 11^th state primary.

Voters who did not return the postcard within 33 days – or those whose postcards were returned by the post office – had their status changed.

This doesn’t mean those voters can’t vote.  It just means they won’t be automatically mailed a ballot and will have to prove their identity and residence in order to be able to vote in person for the general election.

As you may have read, the Pigpen Project also filed almost 4,000 “challenges” right after the primary. What we’re going to do next is bounce that list up against the list of voters who were moved yesterday by the ROV to “inactive” and pursue getting those who were missed.

And to continue giving credit where credit’s due…

Credit for the success of the Pigpen Project’s assistance to the ROV goes to our chief data analyst, Dan Burdish, our project director, Iris Stone, and her mighty band of volunteers who have been going door-to-door for several months now investigating suspicious registrations.

My role has been primarily giving myself a headache trying to study our confusing election laws and consulting with election officials to make sure we did everything “by the book.”

But the real heroes are Dan and Iris and her team.  So take a bow!

Which brings me to the Nevada Republican Party’s version of “stolen valor.”

Yesterday, the party issued an outrageous press release which included a “credit-stealing” statement that the voter roll clean-up was “the result of dedicated efforts” by the Nevada GOP, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Trump Campaign.

RNC Chairman Michael Whatley responded to the press release on Twitter/X, adding…

“Election integrity starts with clean voter rolls, and that’s why we’ve brought litigation in key states to compel outcomes like this.”

Not a single mention of the Pigpen Project!

I guess this shouldn’t p*ss me off…but it does.

Especially since the party has done NOTHING about cleaning up the voter rolls other than filing some lawsuits – all of which, I believe, they’ve lost – and issuing press statements.

That’s why we launched the Pigpen Project in the first place.  If the party wasn’t going to do what really needed to be done…well, we’d do it on our own.  And with the support of some generous donors, we’ve succeeded where the GOP dropped the ball.

Actually, they never even picked it up.

Worse, Nevada Republican National Committeewoman Sigal Chattah threatened to sue us back in May if we didn’t turn over copies of OUR work to her!

If they want credit for doing something on this, then they should, you know, actually DO something on this.

To take credit where none is due is a real insult to election officials who were doing their job, Dan, Iris, and the Pigpen Project’s dedicated volunteers.  Shameful, really.

As the saying goes, “Taking credit for someone’s work might give you temporary fame, but it will never earn you respect.”

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

“My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition.” – Indira Gandhi

Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, publisher of Nevada News & Views and blogs at MuthsTruths.com.  His views are his own.