By Christina A. Cassidy and Scott Sonner, Associated Press
Reno, Nevada (AP) – Jim Merchant is touring the country, repeating false claims that electronic voting equipment should be thrown in favor of ballots stolen from former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election and that he is trying to count. By hand
Now businessmen and former state lawmakers are in Nevada on Tuesday for the primary ballot, a perennial presidential battleground state. His goal: to become the state’s top election official.
Merchant is one of several Republicans across the country running for office in the run-up to the next presidential election, while rejecting the latest results.
In 2020, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud or vote rigging. But false claims have cast doubt on Republican voters, threatened election officials with death and led to a host of new voting restrictions in GOP-controlled states. Related to matched ballot.
Nevada’s top election official, Secretary of State Barbara Segavaske, a Republican, has repeatedly said she found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. The period prevents Cegavske from seeking re-election.
Of the seven Republicans hoping to replace him, Merchant stands out for his rhetoric. He claimed that the election had been rigged for a long time during the candidate forum in February.
“Your vote hasn’t been counted for decades,” Merchant told the crowd. “You have not chosen anyone. The people in office have been chosen. You have no choice. “
Moments later, Sparks City Councilman Christopher Dahir – another GOP secretary of state candidates – said he had insulted Merchant’s claim “because I think I was actually elected.”
Dahir told the Associated Press this week that he did not believe there was widespread fraud in 2020.
“I believe I am the only candidate who is willing to accept the results, but I will work hard to ensure that there is no reason to question this incredible right we have as a Nevadan,” he wrote in an email.
Nationally, there are about two dozen Republican candidates vying to become the top election officials in their state who reject the results of the 2020 presidential election, according to State Joint Action, a non-partisan advocacy organization that tracks candidates.
Leading candidates in the November election are Christina Caramo of Michigan, Kim Cricket of Minnesota and Adre Trujillo of New Mexico. Last month, Georgia’s Jodi Hayes lost his bid to remove Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to the state’s GOP primary despite Trump’s support. In Georgia, Raffensperger angered Trump after he rejected a request from the former president in a phone call to “find” enough votes to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory.
Nevada – a state Trump lost twice but where he is popular among Republicans – is a top priority for the GOP this year as the party looks set to win a majority in the U.S. Senate. Trump has backed his 2020 Nevada campaign chairman, former state attorney general Adam Laxalt, in an attempt to remove first-term Democrat Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. He also backed Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo for governor.
Laxalt has reiterated Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, but has had to face criticism in a recent debate with one of his primary opponents.
“When President Trump, the Nevadans and the Americans relied on you to challenge any kind of issues in the 2020 election, you only filed one case, that your own entry was delayed,” said candidate Sam Brown. , A former U.S. Army captain who earned a Purple Heart after being seriously wounded in Afghanistan.
Laxalt said that as chairman of Trump’s Nevada campaign, he “made radical changes in our election so that Democrats could imagine every alarm” and noted that it was the Secretary of State, not the attorney general, who was responsible for investigating voter fraud in Nevada. For the 2020 election, mail ballots were sent to all registered voters – a temporary move that has since been made permanent.
Trump has yet to weigh in on the race for secretary of state, although he backed Merchant in his failed 2020 congressional speech. Trump has also not backed the state’s attorney general in the Republican primary, which features a pair in the race. Lawyers in Las Vegas are more concerned with personal attacks than concerns about voter fraud.
Merchant is not the only GOP candidate to question the state’s competition secretary, the integrity of the election and especially the use of voting machines for voting and counting.
At the February forum, candidate Socorro Cannon compared the U.S. election to “other countries where they know how to cheat”, while candidate Richard Scotty said he agreed to the call to remove voting machines because “they never have data recorded in the evening. Same in the morning.”
Another candidate, businessman and former state MP Jesse Howe, accused Democrats of changing voting rules to manipulate the system and called for new restrictions on voter ID requirements and mail ballots.
Electoral claims seem to resonate with GOP primary voters.
At a recent rally in northern Nevada for Senate candidate Brown, many Republicans said they were confident Trump had won in 2020 and that election integrity was a top concern.
Ingrid Lentz, 70, of Reno, said she believed there were “unseen forces” behind the previous election.
“I believe the election was rigged,” added Ken Gray, chairman of the rural Leon County Board of Commissioners, who is running for the state legislature seat.
Renault’s retired general contractor Charlie Fatig said there had been “a lot of illegal things” in 2020, adding that he did not believe in mailbox ballots or mail voting in general.
“It simply opens the door to corruption,” Fatig said.
To be clear, the federal government’s top security experts have called the 2020 presidential election “the safest in US history,” with Trump’s own attorney general saying there was no fraud that would change the outcome, and no evidence to suggest Trump. Cheated in second term.
Outside money has been funding ads for the Secretary of State in GOP Primary. The Virginia-based Americans for Secure Election PAC, which has received २ 1.2 million from three non-disclosure groups, is running ads in support of Howe, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, which is tracking fundraising in these races. The PAC recently launched ads attacking the merchant while another PAC is broadcasting ads in support of him, according to the Brennan Center.
On the Democratic side, Cisco Aguilar, a lawyer and former chairman of the Nevada Athletic Commission, is running unopposed in the primary. In an interview, he praised the current Secretary of State for taking steps to ensure safe and secure elections and said he would build on the work done by the legislature to expand voting access. He criticized the GOP region for spreading false information about the state’s safe voting methods.
“Unfortunately, we have a group of candidates who are trying to intimidate voters into action,” Aguilar said.
Election experts say that a candidate who repeats false and misleading information can pose a threat if he is in a position to observe the election. They may be motivated to interfere in the administration of future elections or use their position to cast doubt on the outcome.
“That person can create an atmosphere of instability and suspicion based on lies, and that instability can lead to political violence,” said David Baker, a former U.S. Department of Justice lawyer who heads the Center for Electoral Innovation and Research. “It’s not a fantasy we saw on January 6th.”
Cassidy reported from Atlanta. Gabe Stern, an Associated Press writer in Mindan, Nevada, contributed to this report.
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