Conservative group sues Nevada counties over voter registration challenges

A conservative organization filed a lawsuit in Carson City against two Nevada counties that it alleges failed to process the organization's challenges of registered voters believed to have moved from the counties.

Citizen Outreach Foundation, a libertarian-leaning grassroots organization based in Las Vegas, filed lawsuits against Carson City and Storey County clerks and are asking the court to instruct them to process challenges of suspected ineligible voters.

"This was a last resort action we've worked hard to avoid," Chuck Muth, president of the Citizen Outreach Foundation, said in a statement. "We've done everything by the book and according to the law, but the Clerks got caught between a rock and a hard place."

The lawsuit filed Friday is the start of what the organization expects will be multiple lawsuits filed this week in other counties — including Clark and Washoe.

The secretary of state's office declined to comment but pointed to a Sept. 11 press release in which Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar explained counties' list maintenance efforts, which resulted in clerks canceling registrations of nearly 140,000 inactive voters during the maintenance period.

"County election officials have worked hard to update and clean the voter rolls, a process that is ongoing and crucial to Nevada's safe and secure elections," Aguilar said in the release.

Challenging voter registrations

Muth, a conservative blogger and campaign trainer who has also held roles in the state and Clark County Republican parties, sent multiple challenges to counties across the state as part of the Citizen Outreach Foundation's so-called "Pigpen Project," which launched in January 2023 with the goal of identifying ineligible voters on Nevada's voter rolls and working with counties to remove them.

The group looked at official voter registration data from the secretary of state's database, to which it won access in May, and cross referenced that with national change of address data maintained by the U.S. Postal Service, according to court documents.

Nevada has processes to challenge a registered voter suspected of moving outside the boundaries of the county in which they're registered. A registered voter can file a challenge, stating they believe either the voter is not a citizen or has moved away, according to state law .

The county must mail a notice to the voter whose eligibility is being questioned after the challenge is filed. If the suspected ineligible voter fails to respond, the county clerk must cancel the registration, according to state law. The county must also let the district attorney know, who will then investigate the challenge within 14 days, and if appropriate, set forward prosecution in court.

Muth filed challenges in July across the state, including 480 affidavits challenging suspected ineligible registered voters in Carson City whom he said appear to have either moved out of Carson City or the state, according to the complaint.

In August, the secretary of state's office sent a memorandum to the county clerks and registrars providing guidance on registered voter challenges, and following that memorandum, some counties stopped processing Muth's challenges, the lawsuit claims.

'Personal knowledge' rule

The memorandum, provided in court documents, cites state law that says in order to bring a written challenge forward, a registered voter must be registered to vote in the same precinct as the person whose right to vote is challenged and base the challenge on their "personal knowledge" of the registered voter.

Aguilar said that the recent challenges sent to county clerks and registrars are not based on "personal knowledge," which the secretary of state understands to be "knowledge gained through firsthand observation or experience."

He also said that the state cannot use national change of address data to remove voters during the 90 days before a federal election.

"County clerks who receive these challenges should reject them and instruct challengers that personal knowledge gained through firsthand experience or observation of the facts relating to a voter's eligibility is necessary to file a valid challenge under either statute," the memorandum from Aguilar states.

In a response letter to the secretary of state, Muth said the secretary of state's directive to reject his challenges is "clearly based on a technical 'informality' that has no bearing on the facts set forth in my affidavits."

Pigpen Project writ of Mandamus Carson City by Jessica Hill on Scribd