Nevada State Democratic Party chairperson Danielle Monroe-Moreno said the organization has been working for months to educate voters throughout the state ahead of Election Day. The effort is in response to what she said was Nevada Republicans setting up an environment “to deny election results again as Donald Trump and JD Vance continue to do.”
Vance, repeatedly this month including during the vice presidential debate, refused to say Trump had lost the 2020 election. Trump has consistently refused to accept the results of the 2020 election and has said if the election isn’t honest, “you have to fight for the right of the country” — phrasing similar to what he used in 2020 before the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“There is nothing patriotic about a disregard for all law and order,” Monroe-Moreno said Wednesday during a call with local and national media. She said the focus for her and fellow Democrats is on a fair and democratic election.
Monroe-Moreno said Nevada elections are secure, a message that’s been part of the “all hands on deck” voter education program. Other efforts the party has undertaken include bilingual voter education websites, postcards explaining the importance of updated signatures for ballot verification, and a voter protection hotline that can assist voters with understanding their rights.
Nevada’s District 13 State Senator Skip Daly was also on the call and said it was a critical moment in time to turn out the vote, call out lies and commit to the truth. He said he’s confident that Washoe County is “in a good spot” for this year’s election and expects “business as usual” despite the recent staffing change at the Washoe County Registrar of Voters office.
Many others would have people believe otherwise. Daly pointed to far-right activists in the state who have been working to sow doubts about the process since the last presidential election, making baseless claims, sparking violent threats and stirring up conspiracy theories.
“All of these failed lawsuits … the historically failed lawsuits, [are] the building blocks of lies that continue to grow throughout the legal process — this is dangerous,” Daly said. “The Nevada GOP is actively fighting against law and order and they know these claims are baseless.”
Lawsuits proliferate
As with the 2020 scheme to overthrow the results of the presidential election, numerous lawsuits have already been filed in several states, including Nevada, which Democrats say are intended to sow doubt on election results.
Bradley Schrager, who serves as general counsel for the Nevada party, called the 2020 lawsuits a “dismal and almost laughable failure.” He said of the dozen lawsuits filed this year, most by the Trump campaign or the state Republican party, all have either been lost outright, voluntarily dismissed by those who filed them, or filed and not pursued with any hope of resolution before the election.
Schrager called the lawsuits part of a “litigation strategy” intended to incite hardline conservatives with the “issue of the day,” and lay the groundwork for delegitimizing the results of the election and for disregarding judicial orders.
“It strikes me that the filing of the lawsuits is the point, not the winning of them,” he said. “It’s to sow confusion and to create chaos. One of the reasons you can tell this is to look at how the GOP and their representatives talk about these lawsuits in the wake of losing them or dismissing them. Instead of talking about the issues that were at stake, they blame the judges who are said to be ‘corrupt.’ They blame technicalities.”
Schrager said it was clear that those filing the lawsuits on behalf of the GOP aren’t serious about the claims. He said some of the lawsuits suggest an emergency, but don’t include a request to expedite proceedings ahead of the election. He said if one is to suggest a legal emergency then drop it or fail to follow through, “it suggests … that you were never all that serious about the emergency you were proclaiming.”
After the election, Schrager said more lawsuits could crop up, potentially alleging errors at the polls, problems with voting machines or the counting of the ballots. He added, however, that it’s “a delicate dance.”
“If you’ve lost on the front end, as the GOP has, in losing some of these cases the GOP has also closed off the opportunity to make legal changes on some of these issues,” he said.
Shoring up elections legislatively
Daly said he worked in 2023 to shore up elections in Nevada, but his efforts were vetoed by the governor. He said he’s already at work to bring similar legislation back in 2025.
Daly’s Senate Bill 133 passed during the 2023 legislative session and would have made creating, conspiring to create, or serving on a false slate of electors a category B felony. The bill was in response to a 2020 effort by Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald, along with five others, to sign and send to Washington, D.C., a phony document purporting to pledge Nevada’s electoral college votes for Donald Trump.
These “fake electors” were part of a multi-pronged effort to subvert the election results and declare Trump the winner.
“I could not believe my fellow Nevadans would attempt to steal our six electoral votes,” Daly said, adding that he was looking to bring back the fake electors bill for the 2025 legislative session and exploring legislation to clarify the duty county officials have in certifying election results.
Three members of Washoe’s Board of County Commissioners refused to certify the results of the June primary election following numerous unfounded complaints by far-right election deniers. Commissioners voted to certify days later, but only after legal action was threatened.
Daly noted that certification wasn’t an issue just in Nevada. He pointed to a recent ruling by a Georgia judge confirming the duty of elected officials to certify election results regardless of suspicions of fraud or error. He also said certification once the ballots are counted isn’t his only concern, “but all of the other steps that have to take place,” including printing and mailing ballots and having the proper equipment on hand.
“At any point they could gum up the process by just not doing it,” Daly said. A bill proposal now in draft would allow the secretary of state or attorney general to take over managing a county’s election if the county failed to meet deadlines laid out in its election plan. The county would then be billed for the cost of the election, which Daly said could be an unknown cost “they wouldn’t want to experience.”
