A new examination of Nevada’s 2022 ballot count reveals the possible election-flipping number of email votes that were counted despite arriving after Election Day, as a Nevada law that allows mail ballots received up to four weeks after Election Day is facing a legal issue. In only Clark County, roughly 40, 000 email ballots were counted that arrived in the days after voting supposedly ended, about 5 percentage of the state’s overall vote count.
In the same election, Republican Senator Adam Laxalt defeated Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto on election day, but the state lost by less than 8, 000 seats. For contrast, two years prior, Joe Biden barely beat Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election in Nevada by 33, 596 seats.
In the final days of battle Nevada’s important 2022 U. S. Senate contest, Laxalt pulled ahead of former Cortez Masto. Given that the former Nevada attorney general was over by 3 items a month prior, Politico, a leftist publication, expressed concern over the news that Laxalt had “inched back” of Cortez Masto as a “bad signal” for Democrats on October 21.
Shortly after the election, Vox senior politics reporter Christian Paz wrote that” Cortez Masto was long seen as the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent in the Senate, the most likely to fall” and that a “red wave” would sweep the country and punish Democrats in the middle of the election.  ,
Republicans were unable to capitalize on the wave in a midterm election that was meant to be a vote on a highly unpopular president. While the GOP won back the House by a paper thin majority, the Senate remained in Democrat control and the many races that were” supposed” to go red, did n’t.  ,
In Nevada, there was plenty of time to staunch the wave.  ,
Days of Counting
Laxalt appeared to have a comfortable lead on election night, but the counting was still far off. The votes kept coming, and they kept coming in large numbers for Cortez Masto, thanks to the Silver State’s law that allows mail-in ballots to be counted up to four days after the election.  ,
” I know of several] Republican ] candidates who went to bed on election night winning and then a week later they had lost”, Devin Livziey, vice chairman of the Clark County Republican Party, told The Federalist.  ,
Most of the late but legal arrivals were coming from Clark and Washoe counties, home to Las Vegas and Reno, respectively. The counties make up roughly 90 percent of Nevada’s voting population, and Clark County leans heavily Democrat.  ,
Even if Laxalt had won 63 percent of the outstanding Clark County votes, she still would lose, Laxalt tweeted the following night.
However, the numbers were increasing after Election Day.  ,
” On Wednesday afternoon and evening, several Nevada counties reported updated results accounting for thousands of mail ballots, including more than 14, 000 in Clark County and 20, 000 in Washoe County”, the Nevada Independent reported. ” Three rural counties — Lyon, Nye and Douglas — also reported more votes collectively totaling about 11, 000 ballots”.
Three days after Election Day, according to the publication, Laxalt led Cortez Masto by fewer than 9, 000 votes. When the dust settled on the protracted election week, the Democrat had the votes she needed to win by less than 8, 000 votes, or less than eight tenths of a percentage point.  ,
Election Day Hangover
Nevada Independent reporter Tabitha Mueller made a reminder to her followers on X last week about how significant the hangover on Election Day was to the 2022 general election’s outcome. She noted records from the secretary of state that showed that Clark County received almost 3 percent of all ballots in Washoe County and 5 percent of those received during the four days following Election Day.  ,
Post-Election Day, according to the records, Clark County elections officials received and counted 39, 915 ballots while Washoe County elections officials received and recorded 5, 681 of those ballots via mail. Clark County recorded a total of 685, 486 ballots, while Washoe County counted 195, 272.  ,
An official from the Secretary of State’s Elections Division sent The Federalist the same document, claiming that it was” an internal working document” not “intended for publication” . ,
A July 2023 audit found Clark County elections officials processed more than 27, 000 mail ballots the day after Election Day, and nearly 36, 500 on that Thursday, Nov. 10. After that, things started to slow down, with about 500 mail ballots being processed on Election Day and another 1,400 on the day the final ballots were turned in.  ,
Clark County accepted 340, 508 mail ballots, according to the audit, just less than half of the county’s total ballot count.  ,  ,
The report, completed by the Clark County Audit Department, found nearly 5, 000 mail ballots in the 2022 general election were received between Nov. 13 and Nov. 17, too late to be counted under the law.  ,
Because these ballots cannot be counted or processed under State Law, the report urged the need to continue educational and outreach efforts to raise voter awareness around submission deadlines.  ,
Freewheeling Ballot Harvesting
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Nevada is one of the eight states where all elections can be conducted by mail. Ballot harvesting, once a felony in the Silver State, is the law of the land.  ,
Nevada has one of the country’s most wildly freewheeling ballot harvesting laws that allows unlimited volumes of collection by any “person authorized by the voter,” said Kevin Dietrich of Nevada Policy.
The Las Vegas Review- Journal informed its readers that there were “very few reports of organizations or people collecting ballots in this election” days before the election.  ,
The Review-Journal reached out to both Washoe and Clark counties, who claimed they had not heard of many people allegedly collecting ballots. The Review- Journal also reached out to tribal coalitions, political organizations, unions and churches but did not find anyone offering to bring people’s ballots to the polls”, a piece published on Nov. 4, 2022 claimed.  ,
Republicans who witnessed voter leads disappear in the days immediately following 2022 do n’t agree with that theory.
” I definitely believe they did go out to do ballot harvesting”, said Livziey, acknowledging that the practice is “definitely legal” in Nevada.  ,
That does n’t mean it should be, according to the Republican National Committee, the Nevada Republican Party, and the campaign for former president Donald Trump, the GOP’s 2024 candidate for president.
‘ Higher Law ‘
The Trump campaign and the GOP contend that the four-day grace period is in violation of federal laws that “institue the Tuesday after the first Monday in November as the uniform, national Election Day,” as stated in a federal lawsuit filed earlier this month against Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, a Democrat, and election officials in Nevada’s two most populous counties. The plaintiffs claim that while states have a lot of discretion when it comes to holding federal elections, their election laws “must comply with the higher law of the United States Constitution” and the federal laws that result from them.
” The result of Nevada’s violation of federal law is that timely, valid ballots are diluted by untimely, invalid ballots, which violates the rights of candidates, campaigns, and voters under federal law”, the lawsuit asserts.  ,
As the complaint notes, mail ballots for this year’s Nov. 5 election postmarked by Election Day will be counted if received on or before 5 p. m. on Nov. 9, if Nevada’s law remains in place. Additionally, the lawsuit asserts that Nevada election officials “have counted and will continue to count mail ballots that are received on or before 5 p.m. on November 8, 2024.”
” For instance, the United States Postal Service does not postmark bulk rate mail, which means that a sizable number of mail ballots will not have a postmark. According to the lawsuit, Nevada election officials will continue to count such ballots even if they are delivered after Election Day.  ,
Playing the Hand
Democrats continue to dominate mail-based voting. In a poll conducted by the MIT Election Lab, 46 % of those who identified as Democrats cast ballots in the 2022 election, compared to 27 % of Republicans, found.  ,
Trump campaign attorneys and representatives did not return The Federalist’s requests for comments.  ,
If voting should be held on Election Day, Livziey believes Republicans should better play the game they’ve been given.  ,
” Whether it should be prohibited is another story. The county GOP official said that we must play by the laws that have been given to us.  ,
He continued,” We will absolutely be in the 2024 election,” noting that he could n’t speak to Clark County Republicans about ballot harvesting efforts in 2022.
Matt Kittle covers The Federalist’s senior elections coverage. An award- winning investigative reporter and 30- year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
