LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — From deciding who should be on the ballot to deciding who can cast a ballot, the 2024 election has seen a spate of lawsuits filed from both sides of the aisle.
At stake is the 2024 presidential election, sure to be a close contest between incumbent Democratic President Joe Biden and former Republican President Donald Trump.
Trump narrowly lost Nevada in 2020, coming in behind Biden by fewer than 35,000 votes out of 1.4 million cast. But now, four years later, Trump is leading in the polls, with a Real Clear Politics average of 4.2 percentage points.
All of that means that neither campaign is willing to chance losing even a single vote in November. And that means taking legal actions now to gain as much of an advantage as possible.
Democratic lawsuits
Democrats have filed two lawsuits so far, both aimed at keeping potential competitors to Biden off the November ballot.
The first lawsuit claims the once-defunct Green Party of Nevada didn't collect enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot. But that action was filed just two days before Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar determined that the party did collect enough valid signatures.
NV Dem Party v NV Green Party by stevesebelius on Scribd
That lawsuit was based on a partial review of signatures from rural counties. Lawyers said their attempts to get copies of petitions under the state public records law was ignored.
The Green Party will name its presidential standard-bearer after a July convention. On the list is Jill Stein, who ran for president on the Green Party ticket in 2012 and 2016, where she siphoned votes that might otherwise have gone to Hillary Clinton. (Some in that campaign blame Stein for Clinton's loss to Trump that year.)
Democrats are also seeking to prevent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from appearing on Nevada's ballot as an independent. They maintain that Kennedy is simply using that title to get ballot access, and charge that he's not an independent inasmuch as he appears in other states as the nominee of the American Independent Party (California), Kennedy's own We the People Party (Hawaii), the Natural Law Party of Michigan, the Reform Party (Florida), the Alliance Party (South Carolina) and the Independent Party of Delaware.
Rockenfeller v RFK by Steve.Sebelius
Kennedy initially planned to run for president as a Democrat, but in October 2023 announced an independent bid instead. He's struggled to get onto Nevada's ballot, first filing a candidate petition that failed to name his vice presidential running mate, Nicole Shanahan. He sued Nevada, claiming he'd received bad information from the Secretary of State's office, but simultaneously began circulating a properly-formatted petition.
"They [Kennedy and Shanahan] are not 'independent' candidates, but rather opportunists trying to game the system so as to play spoiler for legitimate political parties and the candidates who have faithfully complied with Nevada law," the lawsuit says. "Here, RFK Jr. and Shanahan seek to game their way onto Nevada's ballot in order to play spoiler after the Democratic Party rejected his candidacy."
Republican lawsuits
The state and national Republican Parties have also filed a series of lawsuits. These are aimed at late-arriving mail-in ballots.
Under current law, mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day and received within four days are counted. Ballots that are received with an illegible postmark are counted if they're received within three days.
But the state also counts ballots that have no postmark at all, assuming they are also received within three days after election day, which a federal lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee, the Nevada Republican Party and the Trump campaign say is improper.
RNC v Aguilar by Steve.Sebelius
The lawsuit acknowledges that mail voting tends to favor Democrats, and that more Democratic mail ballots arrive after Election Day than do those sent by Republicans.
"Accordingly, late-arriving mail ballots that are counted with tend to disproportionately favor Democrat candidates," the lawsuit says.
Universal mail-in voting was passed in a special session of the Legislature during the pandemic in 2020 to prevent the spread of COVID-19 at the polls. However, the 2021 Legislature made the practice permanent, over the objections of Republicans.
Those same plaintiffs have filed a separate federal lawsuit challenging the counting of mail ballots that come in after Election Day as well.
RNC v Cari-Ann Burgess by Steve.Sebelius
That lawsuit argues that Congress has set a single Election Day in the United States, and that counting ballots that are received after that day is unconstitutional.
"By holding voting open beyond the federal Election Day, Nevada violates federal law and harms plaintiffs," the lawsuit says.
And Republicans have filed a third lawsuit, alleging that Nevada's voter rolls are poorly maintained. Some counties have more registered voters than people, the lawsuit says, and others have registration rates of 90%.
That lawsuit hit a snag earlier this month when a federal judge dismissed it because she said the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the action in the first place, but allowed that they could re-file the challenge if they did so by early July.
The courts have also become a quiet battleground in the run up to the 2024 election in other swing states, too.
