by Michael Lyle, Nevada Current
Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar on Friday called the Republicans’ latest lawsuit questioning his office’s handling of the state’s voter rolls and registration “meritless.”
Aguilar in a statement said his office “will be filing a motion to dismiss” the lawsuit brought by the Nevada Republican Party and the Republican National Committee on March 19.
The lawsuit claims the secretary of state isn’t complying with the National Voter Registration Act, the federal law that requires states to maintain voter registration lists and keep track of voter registration statistics. Republicans claim “at least five counties have inordinately high voter registration rates,” though the Nevada Office of the Attorney General has rebuffed those allegations, saying they are based on inaccurate data.
Republicans sent a letter to the secretary of state’s office in December threatening legal action for how the state handled voter roll maintenance requirements.
The Nevada Office of the Attorney General, in a Jan. 18 response letter, questioned the accuracy of the data the state Republican Party based its allegations on.
In its response, the AG’s office noted that initial concerns raised by Republicans were based on an analysis that “is highly flawed” noting that the “sole basis for your allegation of non-compliance with the NVRA is a statistical analysis of registration rates that relies on incomparable data.”
The “registration rates are not an appropriate basis for determining whether a state is complying with the NVRA,” the attorneys wrote.
“Based on more accurate data and applicable laws, we strongly disagree with your claim,” they wrote.
The RNC’s suit in Nevada is part of a broader strategy to fight in courtrooms and legal filings in key election battleground states to to cast suspicion on state voting processes and procedures.
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