3 Percent of Nevada Mail Ballots in Question After Survey Finds Defrauded Voters

Clark County Election Department worker Breanna Silas accepts ballots at the Clark County Election Department, which serves as a drive-up and walk-up election ballot drop-off point on October 13, 2020 in North Las Vegas, Nevada. Ethan Miller/Getty Images

An audit of 1,440 Nevada mail-ballots suggests that 2 percent of the ballots were cast on behalf of voters who never received a ballot in the mail and 1 percent of them were cast on behalf of voters who said they didn’t vote at all.

Baselice and Associates conducted the audit for the legal team representing the Trump campaign in Nevada. The firm called the voters identified on each mail ballot. The findings suggest that 3 percent of the ballots were cast by someone other than the person identified on the ballot.

The legal team presented the findings during a call with reporters on Dec. 2, during which attorneys previewed the outlines of a lawsuit pending in Carson City, Nevada. A court hearing on the case is scheduled for Dec. 3.

The judge in the case ordered on Dec. 3 that the Trump team be allowed to inspect election machines. The legal team said that while they requested to perform a forensic audit, Clark County officials merely provided “a guided tour.”

“Machines were not usable, and we were not able to make a determination about the accuracy and integrity of the election process based on this inspection,” a press briefing from the team states. “We are entitled to a computer forensic inspection in accordance with the judge’s order. We were prevented from doing one. This was a digital election and we were not allowed a digital inspection. The ‘inspection’ today was like trying to determine if a car had failed brakes without getting underneath the car.”

The lawsuit—Law v. Whitmer—was filed by the presidential electors for Trump against the presidential electors for former Vice President Joe Biden.

The central thrust of the election challenge focuses on ballots that the Trump team alleges were illegally cast. That includes 130,000 Clark County ballots, the signatures on which were verified solely by a machine that the plaintiffs allege was not operated properly.

A data scientist working for the plaintiffs identified an additional 100,000 potentially illegal votes, including 20,000 out-of-state voters, 8,000 ballots cast from nonexistent addresses, and 15,000 ballots from voters registered at commercial addresses and vacant properties.

The hearing on Dec. 3 will be the first time Trump’s legal team presents evidence before a judge in an election lawsuit. The plaintiffs and the defendants had until 5 p.m. on Wednesday to submit their evidence.