Nevada judge blocks Trump campaign’s bid to stop Clark County’s mail-in ballot counting

County employees process mail-in ballots at a Clark County election department facility Saturday, Oct. 31, 2020, in Las Vegas.
AP Photo/John Locher

(The Center Square) – The Nevada Republican Party and President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign lost a pivotal attempt to halt ballot counting in Clark County, the state’s most populous county.

Republicans sued the Nevada Secretary of State and the Clark County Registrar on Oct. 23, alleging they violated the state’s election law by forcing early ballot counting.

District Court Judge James Wilson found that the plaintiffs failed to present evidence that would suggest improper actions for monitoring ballot reception points.

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford criticized the president’s “deliberate attempts to undermine” the state’s election, in a statement Monday.

“He has made every attempt to control the outcome of this election without any regard for the health and safety of residents or Nevada’s state laws designed to protect the sanctity of the ballot,” Ford said. “Today’s ruling makes clear that there is a proper procedure to observe an election that even the president must follow, and it’s most certainly a victory for the constitutional rights of all Nevadans.”

Clark County, according to the lawsuit, uses an electronic voting sorting system called Agilis, which petitioners questioned in the lawsuit. Judge Wilson noted in his decision that there was “no evidence [that] was presented of any Agilis errors or inaccuracies.”

There was also “no evidence was presented that there is any indication of any error in Clark County’s Agilis signature match rate,” he added.

CNN reported that Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald said in a statement that Wilson’s decision is a “dark day in our state’s history, but our fight for a free, fair and transparent election is not over.”

Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske’s Office reports that 1,125,580 Nevadans have already voted as of Monday morning, representing 61.8% of active voters in the state.

Of those votes, 582,204 were returned as mail-in ballots and 543,376 were cast in-person, according to the office’s data.