"Unlawful": Nevada GOP officials set "dangerous precedent" by refusing to certify election results

Republican Nevada county officials are joining the election disinformation crusade a few months early. On Tuesday, the Washoe County Commissioner Board voted 3-2 against certifying the results of an official recount of contests from Nevada’s June 9 primary, in a move slammed by the state’s attorney general as undemocratic.

The two races, a county commissioner district and a school board trustee spot, saw the same results as the initial tally in the recount.

“The Board’s decision is unlawful, and besieges core tenets of fair elections in our State,” the state’s Attorney General Aaron Ford wrote in a court filing on behalf of the Secretary of State. “Nevada law makes canvassing election results – including recount results – by a certain date a mandatory legal duty for the Board.”

The vote went down along party lines, with Republican commissioners citing unfounded irregularities that, despite the recount, “warrant further investigations,” emphasizing the spread of right-wing attacks on election legitimacy since Donald Trump’s efforts to deny and subvert the results of the 2020 race.

“This vote has the potential to set a dangerous precedent for elections in Nevada. It is unacceptable that any public officer would undermine the confidence of their voters,” Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said in a statement.

Per the Nevada Current, a similar stunt in Arizona resulted in Cochise County supervisors being forced to certify their county’s election results in 2022. It landed two of the supervisors in felony investigations.

Nevada, which has stalled its case against Trump supporters who sent a slate of fake electors to Congress as part of a national scheme to overturn the election, is considered a crucial swing state, awarding its electoral votes to Joe Biden in 2020 after a contentious battle against the state’s counting efforts from the Trump campaign.