Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Judge denies request for late voter registration

District Judge Valerie Adair denied a request Friday to allow late voter registration of people who said they filled out forms that may have been thrown away.

The Democratic Party filed a lawsuit Wednesday arguing that an unknown number of people could lose their right to vote on Nov. 2 because of reports that Democratic voter registration forms taken by Voters Outreach of America, a group funded by the Republican National Committee, were destroyed.

But Adair said in her ruling that opening up voter registration, even for a day, could disrupt the election process in Clark County and allow voters to register even if they had not tried to register previously.

"There is not guarantee that hundreds of people would not try to register," Adair said, adding that figuring out who could and could not register under such circumstances "would be unconstitutional and fundamentally unfair."

Adair pointed out that Nevada law allows individual people to file a lawsuit arguing their voting rights have been disrupted. She said that anyone who feels they may have been victimized by Voters Outreach could file a lawsuit under that law.

Adair earlier in the day had asked Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax and Democratic Party attorney Paul Larsen to develop a proposal that would allow victimized would-be voters to register.

County Counsel Mary Miller said they worked out a scenario in which voters would be able to go to the Elections Department on Monday during business hours, register and sign an affidavit saying they they had filled out a form provided by Voters Outreach.

That was intended to ensure that only those who were victimized could register, but both Miller and Lomax expressed concerns that there was no way to tell who truly had been disenfranchised.

Democratic Party spokesman Jon Summers said party officials had not decided Friday afternoon whether to appeal.

Voter registration closed Tuesday and the allegations came to light the same day in a KLAS-TV Channel 8 report in which former Voter Outreach employee Eric Russell that he saw forms signed by Democrats destroyed.

Russell said Friday he was disappointed with the ruling, because he personally witnessed registration forms being destroyed, and he is concerned that Voters Outreach or other groups could continue to disenfranchise voters.

"They're going to do it every election, until one judge stands up and does something about it," he said.

The Republicans called allegations "outright lies" made up by former employees, one of whom had a wage dispute with his employers. One GOP organizer from Arizona said Thursday he planned to sue the employees and Knapp who broke the story.

The situation -- which is escalating even as state and federal officials continue to research what laws would apply to the situation -- has drawn national attention.

It is raising specters of the frenzied fight over Florida ballots in the last presidential election and concerns that Nevada, a so-called battleground state that has seen an influx of out-of-state registration efforts from both parties, is ripe for trouble.

"Anything can happen. It's just sort of crazy. I've never seen such concerted efforts to register people," said Jerry Simich, a UNLV associate professor of political science.

Democrats and Republicans dueled through press releases and news conferences Thursday, as another witness came forward to say she knew of an organized effort to suppress Democratic voter registration forms.

The Republican-funded Voters Outreach of America, which is operating in at least one other state where concerns have been raised about its activities, collected signatures in Las Vegas from mid-August to the end of September. The group returned 1,947 Republican registrations and 319 Democratic registrations out of about 4,500 blank forms it had signed out, county officials said Wednesday.

Nevada Republican Party Chairwoman Earlene Forsythe said in a statement, later bolstered by national GOP Chairman Ed Gillespie, that the Democrats were the ones systematically attempting to influence the process.

Referring to what purports to be a Democratic Party handbook with instructions for poll watchers to make up voter intimidation charges, Forsythe said it showed how low the "Democratic Party will stoop for an ounce of political gain."

Summers later countered by sending out the full contents of the Democratic manual, which counsels people to pre-empt voter suppression techniques through issuing press releases denouncing the practice and pointing to past suppression incidents. The manual does not mention creating charges, as the Republicans alleged.

"Frankly, the Republican Party has a history of voter intimidation or repression," Summers said, explaining the charges as a desperate attempt to deflect attention from the growing issue of alleged fraud. "To say the Democrats are going to go out and make stuff up is preposterous."

The story was broken earlier this week when Russell, a former worker with Voters Outreach of America, first told KLAS reporter George Knapp that Russell caught his supervisors shredding Democratic voter registration forms.

He also claimed that employees were told to seek people who were more likely to register Republican by asking them questions before signing them up, and that employees were not paid unless they brought in a given number of Republican registrants.

Russell went to the FBI but did not file a report, Special Agent David Schrom said. He was to return to the FBI Wednesday but did not, Schrom said. He instead met with Democratic Party lawyers.

FBI officials said he had still not returned as of late Thursday afternoon.

Thursday night Knapp spoke to another former voter registration worker, who said she was employed by Republican-funded Carderock Group and had similar orders.

"Two or three of us asked what do we do if they want to register as a Democrat," Patti Parker said. She said she was told "dispose of it or bring it back here and we will dispose of it."

Nathan Sproul, the Arizona operative and former head of that state's Republican Party, said in a telephone interview from his Phoenix office that Russell and Parker were lying. Sproul operates Sproul and Associates, which is supporting Voters Outreach of America.

"We have a zero tolerance policy of any type of fraud," Sproul said. "There is accountability built into the structure. We had a fraud coordinator who would look at every voter registration form brought in to make sure it was legitimate."

He said Russell was angry because he was fired. He said he didn't know why Parker made the allegations. And he said he planned to sue them and the reporter who broke the story for libel and defamation.

"We have no choice. This was not our first reaction but we are rapidly becoming victims of page 54 of the Democrat's playbook, which is to bring allegations even if they're baseless. I'm not going to sit back and allow that to happen. We're going to fight back," Sproul said.

He pointed to the several hundred Democratic voter registration forms that were turned in, and said that while Voters Outreach had a goal to register Republicans, the group had a firm policy against fraud.

While he said he didn't want to make a distinction between turning down a person who wanted to register Democratic and tearing up their form, neither of which was acceptable, the group "did use some techniques" to favor Republican registrants, such as asking a person for whom they planned to vote before signing them up.

Sproul also denied workers were paid by the number of Republican registration forms they turned in.

"In Nevada we paid by the hour," he said.

It was still unclear Thursday as to what laws may have been broken if the charges are true.

In Carson City, attorneys continued to examine election laws on Thursday, said Tom Sargent, spokesman for the attorney general.

"We're doing a lot of legal research right now," he said.

Nevada law considers it a gross misdemeanor to "Impede or prevent, by abduction, duress or fraudulent contrivance, the free exercise of the franchise by any voter."

It also prohibits anyone from taking action to discourage an applicant from registering to vote, and from altering or defacing a registration form that has been signed by the voter, according to the Democratic Party lawsuit to be heard this morning.

Federal law makes it a felony for two or more persons to conspire to injure, oppress, threaten or intimidate any person from exercising constitutional rights.

Nevada American Civil Liberties Union director Gary Peck said his organization was making this issue a priority.

"Our national voters' rights coordinator is deeply concerned with the reports and we are exploring legal options we may pursue to make sure no one is impermissibly denied the right to vote," Peck said. "But we're closer to the beginning of the process than the end of the process."

He said that "we do recognize there is a short timeline here. Whatever avenues we choose to pursue, we need to do that in a fair and timely manner if it's going to make a difference."

Peck emphasized the non-partisan nature of the group.

"We are unlikely to join in the Democratic lawsuit," he said.

And he said he was concerned that after two days, state officials appear unable to determine how the law views the allegations that the registration forms were destroyed. The ACLU battled the state attorney general over whether or not petition signatures are valid if the signatory registers to vote after they have signed the petition.

"There were no consistent rules being consistently enforced. I am not questioning anyone's personal integrity or motivations, I am talking about an institutional problem," Peck said. "I am not sure to what extent that is part of the explanation of what is happening here."

Lomax said that the news has created a deluge of telephone calls from residents wondering if they were registered.

"We did receive about twice as many calls yesterday as we usually do," Lomax said, pegging the number of calls received Wednesday at about 3,400.

He said that when people register to vote, they're better off -- as it warns on top of the form -- bringing it in themselves, so they can be sure the registration was turned in.

Pete Mota called the Sun to ask whether he was registered to vote. He said he called the elections office, but was placed on hold and since he was calling from work, could not stay on the line.

He said he signed up to vote about two months ago, and fears that his form was thrown away. Mota, who would have been a first-time voter, claims he registered Democrat. The county's Web site has no record of him being a registered voter.

"What does this mean? I'm not going to be able to vote now," he said.

Jean Steenburg, who according to the county Web site is registered as a Republican, said she is a life-long Democrat who changed her registration to Republican after a woman collecting registration forms begged her.

"As I was coming up to the DMV on Sahara she asked me if I was registered to vote. She said 'All I need you to do is sign up as a Republican and I can put the paperwork in. You can vote for whomever you want.' I did it and she was very grateful," Steenburg said.

She said it happened late in the day on Sept. 29 or 30.

"I haven't voted since 1974. This is the first time in all those years I actually felt good about going in and voting," Steenburg said. "Now I'm receiving Republican stuff in my mail. I'm thinking, 'My God, I'm on a list with people I don't vote with, I'm not in their classroom,' you know what I mean?"

Sun reporter Jace Radke contributed to this story.

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