As you may have read a few days ago, the Republican National Committee (RNC) has threatened to sue the Nevada Secretary of State (SOS), as well as a half-dozen counties, over its claim that they’re not making a “reasonable effort” to clean up the voter lists.
It’s not true, as I detailed in a column published on Wednesday.
Today, the Las Vegas Review-Journal ran an article on the RNC’s threat with the SOS’ response…
“Nevada runs some of the most transparent and secure elections in the country, and we welcome members of the public who are interested in learning more, or even scrutinizing our processes. The cleanup of Nevada’s voter registration lists is a critical process for the security and smooth administration of our elections.”
Yes, it is. And reporter Jessica Hill went on to note…
“List maintenance is an ongoing task that requires understanding of what is allowed and prohibited under state and federal law, the office said. Cleanup of the voter rolls must be done carefully to ensure that no legitimate voter is disenfranchised.”
And therein lies the rub.
Just because someone has moved out of state does NOT mean they’re ineligible to vote in Nevada. The voter may be on a temporary out-of-state work assignment, attending an out-of-state college, or serving out-of-state in the military.
That’s why you can’t simply use the National Change of Address (NCOA) list from the post office and remove people without checking to see if they have a legitimate reason for having a temporary out-of-state address while retaining their right to vote in Nevada.
How would you like to be stationed at the Army base in Ft. Hood, Texas, and find out that because you have two addresses, one temporary, that your right to vote in Nevada while on-duty had been cancelled?
That’s why we at the Pigpen Project VERIFY that a suspected registration is, in fact, ineligible before submitting requests to election officials to have the voter’s registration deactivated.
Yes, it takes more work. Yes, it takes more time. Yes, it takes more volunteers.
But that’s why the Pigpen Project has been so successful at getting ineligible voters removed from the voter files where others have failed – over a thousand since the project launched a few months ago.
That’s in addition to the tens of thousands of voters election officials have removed themselves this year by following the procedures outlined in the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
Others – including, if not especially, the Republican Party – go simply by data “analysis” without doing the hard work of confirming their suspicions before leveling unsubstantiated allegations of impropriety.
Our efforts to date have focused primarily on Clark County – where some 2/3’s of Nevada voters live. However, we think we have enough of a handle on the laws and the procedures to soon expand the project statewide.
If you’d like to get involved but have been unable to attend any of our in-person training workshops in Las Vegas on this project, pencil in the evening of January 4, 2024.
Once the holidays are over, we’re going to do a virtual statewide training workshop via Zoom. You’ll learn everything we’ve learned from working on this project over the past year.
Cleaning up the voter files is going to be a long, never-ending process – especially since Nevada has such a transient population moving in and out. And it won’t be successful by taking shortcuts and making wild, unsubstantiated allegations like the RNC did this week.
One at a time. Slow and steady. Dot all the “I’s.” Cross all the “T’s.”
If you’d like to get involved with the Pigpen Project – and yes, we have research tasks you can do from home if you’re not able to join our “boots on the ground” volunteer army – shoot an email to info@pigpenproject.com and we’ll get you in the game.
Have a great weekend!
Chuck Muth
President
Citizen Outreach Foundation
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“It is our commitment to the law and to the people of this state that every (Election Integrity Violation) report is carefully reviewed so that if there is even a single case of potential fraud identified, we conduct an investigation and, if necessary, refer it for criminal prosecution.” – Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar