Trump attacks Vegas-area certification of Biden election win
As officials in Nevada certified results of the Nov. 3 election, President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Monday with a new attack on the vote that gave Democratic candidate Joe Biden a 33,596-vote statewide victory
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Your support makes all the difference.As officials in Nevada’s most populous counties certified results of the Nov. 3 election, President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Monday with a new attack on the vote that gave Democratic candidate Joe Biden a 33,596-vote statewide victory.
The former vice president drew 50.06% of the vote and Trump 47.67% — a 2.39% difference — in results submitted for approval by commissioners in 17 counties including Clark, which encompasses Las Vegas, and Washoe, surrounding Reno.
In the Las Vegas area, officials identified six people who voted twice, Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria told elected county commissioners. They urged Gloria to track Nevada Secretary of State investigations of those cases for possible prosecution.
On a 6-1 vote, the commission accepted results of Gloria's tally of 977,185 ballots cast in the Biden-Trump race.
But the panel also took a first step toward a do-over in one commission district where a Democratic former Nevada secretary of state, Ross Miller, led Republican Las Vegas City Councilman Stavros Anthony by 10 votes after more than 153,000 ballots were counted.
Gloria said election officials found 936 “discrepancies” among votes countywide — ranging from inadvertently canceled votes, reactivated voter cards and check-in errors at polling places.
He said 139 discrepancies in the Miller-Anthony race could not be reconciled — much more than the margin separating the candidates. A recount would not change that total, the elections chief added.
Trump tweeted the results amounted to “large scale voter discrepancy,” and said “Clark County officials do not have confidence in their own election security. Major impact!”
However, a re-vote to choose Miller or Anthony to replace term-limited Commissioner Larry Brown will not have the names Trump or Biden on the ballot.
Responding to an inquiry from The Associated Press, Trump Nevada campaign co-chairman Adam Laxalt texted, “Stay Tuned!"
Nevada Democratic Party officials did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
In Washoe County, commissioners voted 4-1 to certify the vote after county Registrar Deanna Spikula said 252,563 ballots were counted. Commissioner Jeanne Herman, a Republican, voted no.
The moves came as elections officials and county clerks in Nevada’s 17 counties approve results, called the canvass, ahead of Nevada Supreme Court certification on Nov. 24 of the statewide vote.
A state court legal fight to stop counting mail ballots in the Las Vegas area ended last week, after the state high court dismissed an appeal by the Trump campaign and state GOP, at their request.
That left two active legal cases in Nevada relating to the 2020 presidential election.
A federal court action filed Nov. 5 by two voters and two Republican congressional candidates alleged ineligible votes were cast in the Las Vegas area. It remains pending in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas, with a Thursday date for written filings but no hearing scheduled.
A public records lawsuit in state court in Las Vegas led a judge to set a Nov. 20 deadline for Gloria to turn over to the Trump campaign and the state GOP the names, party affiliations, work schedules and job responsibilities of more than 300 people who were hired to count ballots.
Turnout among the state’s more than 1.8 million active registered voters was more than 77.6%, including mail, early voting and election-day ballots cast amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Nevada secretary of state. That compared with a turnout of 76.8% during the presidential election in 2016, when Democrat Hillary Clinton carried Nevada by a little under 2.5% over Trump.