Thousands of Mail-In Ballots In Clark County Missed 2022 Election Deadline

According to a report from Channel 8 news, nearly 5000 mail-in ballots were uncounted in Clark County due to late postmarks.

Channel 8 reports:

An audit of the Clark County Election Department found nearly 5,000 voters submitted their mail-in ballots too late in the 2022 midterm election, leading their votes not to be counted.

Nevada state law requires all mail-in ballots to be postmarked by Election Day. There is then a four-day period after Election Day when county clerks can accept the postmarked ballots and process them. The deadline in 2022 was Nov. 12.

The Clark County Election Department received 4,903 mail-in ballots between Nov. 13 and Nov. 17, the audit said.

“Because these ballots are not able to be counted/processed under state law, it highlights the need to continue educational and outreach efforts to increase voter awareness around submission deadlines,” auditors wrote in their report.

Under the guise of the pandemic, the Democrat-controlled legislature, without a single Republican vote, ushered in sweeping changes to Nevada’s election laws. “Emergency” legislation passed in 2021 legalized unlimited ballot harvesting, universal mail balloting to all actively registered voters, and extended deadlines for mail-in ballots that do not have legible postmarks.

Nevada is only one of eight state with universal mail balloting. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Nevada is one of fifteen states that requires no documentation to cast a ballot.

In another Nevada report from the Public Interest Legal Foundation, President J. Christian Adams found that “Automatic mail ballots are a disaster and the Nevada numbers prove it.”

According to their report: 95,556 ballots were sent to an undeliverable or “bad” address, another 8,036 were rejected upon receipt, and 1.2 million ballots never came back to officials for counting. In other words, 71.5 percent of mailed ballots are unaccounted for.

During the 2023 legislative session, a series of bills to strengthen election laws were introduced by Governor Joe Lombardo and Republican legislators. Yet, Democratic leadership killed every bill. In a press conference, Democratic Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager said that the bills were “dead on arrival.”

Nevadans deserve to have confidence that our elections are free and fair. It's time we institute common-sense election reforms:
✅Voter ID
✅Mail-In Ballots Are Received When Polls Close
❌End Universal Mail-In Ballots
❌End Unregulated Ballot Harvestinghttps://t.co/fZ8JkFP7iR

— Governor Joe Lombardo (@JosephMLombardo) January 31, 2023

During his State of the State, Governor Lombardo appealed for election integrity measures, specifically voter ID, noting, “We require people to have a valid form of identification to get on a plane, to operate a motor vehicle, or to purchase alcohol or cigarettes, but not to cast a vote in an election. That is illogical.”

When The Globe questioned Yeager about the bills, Yeager replied that Republicans were “looking for a solution to a problem that didn’t exist.” Attorney General Aaron Ford followed with a curious charge that voter identification laws were “unconstitutional.” Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar joined the chorus, stating: “It is important to understand when you mess with a fundamental right, you better be very careful in what you are doing to limit your access to the ballot box.”

As reported by the Globe, 74 percent of Nevadans support Voter ID, including a majority of Democrats and Independents. Governor Lombardo’s bill stipulated that if a person does not have a driver’s license, the Department of Motor Vehicles could issue that voter a free identification card.

Due to the Democrats actions in the Nevada legislature, Lombardo has pushed Voter ID as a ballot measure.

Today, David Gibbs, founder of Repair the Vote, told the Globe that his organization will be filing a Voter ID initiative in September and will begin collecting signatures through June. If they receive enough signatures, the measure will appear on the November 2024 ballot.