Several Nevada clerks are failing to undertake their legally required duty to process citizen-led challenges of potentially ineligible voters on the state’s registration lists, a lawsuit filed Friday alleges.
Brought in Nevada’s First Judicial District Court by the Citizen Outreach Foundation (COF) and its president, Chuck Muth, the legal challenge contends that the election clerks of Carson City and Storey County are neglecting to fulfill their statutory obligation to process challenges to allegedly unlawful registrants on the counties’ respective voter rolls. Carson City Clerk Scott Hoen and Storey County Clerk Jim Hindle are named defendants in the case.
As noted in the lawsuit, the legal saga stems from an Aug. 27 directive issued by Democrat Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar. The memo instructed local clerks to refrain from complying with voter registrant challenges made under a specific provision of state law used by Muth and the COF.
As I previously wrote in these pages, the COF filed affidavits challenging the eligibility of nearly 4,000 registrants on July 29 under Section 535, which permits “any elector or other reliable person” to file challenges against registrants they have reason to believe are noncitizens or have moved to a different county or state with the intention of relocating there or “remaining there for an indefinite time.” The statute requires challengers to affirm “he or she has personal knowledge of the facts set forth in the affidavit.”
COF made its Section 535 challenges after its affidavits submitted under Section 547 were rejected. That section has seemingly stricter requirements for making challenges, such as the requirement that affidavits must be “based on the personal knowledge of the registered voter.”
Despite acknowledging “‘personal knowledge’ is not explicitly defined under [Section 535] or implementing regulations,” Deputy Secretary of Elections Mark Wlaschin declared in the Aug. 27 memo to clerks that Aguilar “views the term to mean the same thing in both statutes” and instructed local officials to “reject” challenges that did not comply with his office’s interpretation of the law.
In their Friday lawsuit, plaintiffs allege that Hoen and Hindle “have refused to act” upon their statutory duties to process their Section 535 challenges as required by state law. They also contend that neither Carson City nor Storey County responded to their Sept. 10 correspondence “to each district attorney regarding the failure to process challenges because of the memorandum issued by Cisco Aguilar.”
“Petitioners and the Public will continue to be injured by Respondents Hoen and Hindle’s failure to act unless and until they are required to fulfill their duties under Nevada law,” the lawsuit reads.
Muth separately noted in a Friday article that he views Aguilar — not the county clerks and registrars “who processed [the COF’s] original challenges” — as the “bad guy.”
“[W]hile we asked that [Aguilar] rescind his directive and allow the clerks/registrars to comply with Nevada’s law and process the challenges, he’s refused to even respond. Which leaves us with no choice but to seek court intervention,” Muth wrote. “Unfortunately and reluctantly, that means we have to sue the county clerks/registrars — even the ones who initially did their jobs exactly as they were supposed to.”
The COF president told The Federalist in a previous interview that many local officials have been “extremely cooperative and helpful” in his group’s efforts to get ineligible registrants removed from the Silver State’s voter rolls.
Plaintiffs have requested Nevada’s First Judicial District Court to issue a writ of mandamus “compelling Respondents to process the challenges and provide notice to the registrant” as specified by state law. They also asked the court to declare defendants to be in violation of Nevada law and issue an injunction requiring them to follow it.
Related lawsuits will be filed against other Nevada county clerks this week, according to Muth.
Neither Hoen nor Hindle responded to The Federalist’s requests for comment.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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