(Chuck Muth) – The good news is our Pigpen Project to clean up Nevada’s voter rolls recently garnered national attention.
The bad news is the bad guys read the article, too. And we expect national left-wing organizations such as Mark Elias’ “Democracy Docket” to try to shut us down.
But we’re ready for them. Everything we’ve done is by the book and in consultation with Nevada election officials.
Still, we’ve run into some obstacles. Not so much from resistance by election officials but serious flaws in the law that desperately need to be addressed in the next legislative session.
Our election laws are complicated, convoluted, and often in conflict with one another. Lawyers and legislators have made them that way on purpose. And it’s taken us a long time to “peel the onion” and fully understand them.
So since this issue isn’t going away anytime soon – and certainly not before the November 5 election – I wanted to ‘splain what we’re facing in layman’s terms so you know what we’re up against…
1.) There are two types of voters who have the right to vote: “active” and “inactive.” This is important because, by law, only “active” voters are supposed to automatically receive a mail-in ballot.
Inactive voters can still vote, but they have to prove their eligibility first.
2.) There are two ways for an outside organization like ours to request that election officials change the status of voters who have moved from where they’re registered: “list maintenance requests” and “challenges.”
3.) Federal law requires election officials to regularly take actions to clean up their voter files of people who have moved or died. However, they currently fulfill that requirement only by moving people from active to inactive who have their ballots returned by the post office after an election or by a bulk mailing to all active voters every other year.
Unfortunately, especially in Nevada, this minimum list maintenance process has allowed tens of thousands of “moved” voters, who are missed by the post office for various reasons, to remain on our voter rolls.
4.) By law, election officials “may” work with us on list maintenance requests/reports but aren’t required to. Some do, some don’t. They are, however, required to take action when an official “challenge” is filed.
5.) The Nevada Secretary of State has encouraged organizations such as ours to file challenges rather than submit list maintenance reports.
6.) There are two different types of challenges provided for in state law: Section 535 challenges and Section 547 challenges.
7.) Section 547 challenges can only be filed between 25-and-30 days before an election and must be filed by someone living in the same precinct as the challenged voter. The challenger must also have “personal knowledge” of the voter and the fact that they’ve moved or died.
For example, the current resident has “personal knowledge” that the former resident no longer lives there or a relative has “personal knowledge” that a voter has died.
Section 547 challenges, once received, require election officials to take specific actions – including notifying the local district attorney – to prevent challenged voters from casting a ballot without first confirming their residence.
We filed about a dozen “test” challenges in Clark County under Section 547 before the June 11 primary. However, they were rejected because it was determined that we didn’t meet the “personal knowledge” requirement since we were relying on information provided by the post office.
8.) Section 535 challenges, however, may be filed by any voter at any time.
Upon receipt, election officials are supposed to mail a registration confirmation postcard to the challenged voter. If the voter does not return the postcard within 33 days, the voter is supposed to be moved from active to inactive status.
But the important difference here is in how “personal knowledge” is defined in statute. While challengers using Section 547 must have personal knowledge of the voter, Section 535 challengers only need to have personal knowledge of the information being relied on to file the challenge.
The information we’re relying on is the official voter registration database of the Nevada Secretary of State’s office and the official National Change of Address (NCOA) data from the United States Postal Service (USPS).
And there are two different types of change-of-address filings: Temporary (such as college students and military personnel) and Permanent. Movers must choose one or the other, and we only research those who check off “Permanent.”
I guess I should note here that the voter’s party affiliation has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the challenges we file because it doesn’t matter which party the voter belongs to. Any loose ballot can be illegally cast regardless of how the voter is registered.
9.) Today, we started submitting Section 535 challenges to the various county clerks/registrars in Nevada – almost 4,000 of them, including 3,116 in Clark Couty alone.
And these aren’t just voters who the post office confirms have moved out of Nevada.
We now have access to the official voter registration records of 15 other states. And of the voters we’re challenging, not only have they filed a change-of-address report with the post office. but they have re-registered to vote in their new states.
And in 102 of those cases, records show they’ve actually VOTED in their new state.
In fact, we uncovered one instance where a voter appears to have voted in both Nevada and Texas in the 2022 general election. We filed an Election Integrity Complaint on that voter back in April, which is currently being investigated by the Secretary of State.
10.) Now, the problem with filing these Section 535 challenges today is that the voter has 33 days to respond. And federal law prohibits changing a voter’s status during the 90-day “blackout” period before an election.
We enter that blackout period in about a week, so even successfully challenged voters who should be moved from active to inactive won’t be moved until after November 5th. Which means they’ll still be automatically sent a mail-in ballot.
And that means the only remaining option we’ll have to challenge voters before they cast a ballot in the coming general election will be Section 547 challenges. And as noted earlier, the law makes filing those kinds of challenges extremely difficult.
But we’re working on it now that we’ve been advised as to what must be done.
So as you can see – and as we’ve learned the hard way – cleaning up Nevada’s voter rolls is no easy thing.
And for the left-wingers who falsely accuse us of voter “disenfranchisement” and “suppression” for trying to clean up the voter rolls, my question is this: “If these people really no longer live in Nevada, why do you want to keep them on Nevada’s voters rolls?”
In addition, size doesn’t matter.
If 10 people are on Nevada’s active voter rolls who shouldn’t be there, all 10 should be removed. It it’s 10,000, all 10,000 should be removed. If it’s 100,000, all 100,00 should be removed. If they’re ineligible, they’re ineligible…no matter how many there are.
So don’t be fooled by hysteria-inducing headlines such as Democracy Docket’s “Right-Wing Group Attempts to Purge More Than a Thousand Nevada Voters.”
I’ll leave you with this…
Yes, mistakes CAN happen. But even in a rare instance where an eligible voter might be moved from active to inactive inadvertently – and even if their registration is cancelled outright – they can’t and won’t be denied their “right to vote.” And here’s why…
For better or worse, Nevada has adopted same-day registration. So any eligible voter – right up to Election Day itself – can register or re-register to vote and cast a ballot.
The bottom line is simple: If “Joe Smith” has given up residence in Nevada and moved to another state, he should no longer be on Nevada’s active voter file and should not be automatically mailed a ballot. Period.
So let it be written; so let it be done.
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“The Secretary of State’s office, at the bottom line, is a technology company. We use technology to drive corporate and business filings. We use technology to do our securities investigations. It’s also using technology in the election space to increase accuracy, and making sure we’re doing what we need to do and giving the voter that best experience to have trust in the system.” – Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, Las Vegas Sun, 6/12/24
The Pigpen Project is a project of Citizen Outreach Foundation, an IRS-approved 501(c)(3) grassroots organization founded in 1992. Donations are tax-deductible for federal income tax purposes.