LAS VEGAS — Clark County responded to allegations from former President Donald Trump that the county's election system was corrupt.
In a post Thursday on the platform Truth Social, the former president said, “Clark County, Nevada, has a corrupt voting system ... as do many places in our soon to be Third World Country.” He also advised Adam Laxalt, who is running for the U.S. Senate, to “be careful.”
In a press release, county spokesperson Erik Pappa said, “We have heard his outrageous claims, but he is obviously still misinformed about the law and our election processes that ensure the integrity of elections in Clark County.”
Pappa said state law requires the county to accept mail-in ballots until Saturday if they were postmarked by Election Day, to check each signature on ballots that are mailed, and to give voters until Nov. 14 to have their signature cured.
“All of our election systems are certified by the state and federal governments for use in the State of Nevada,” Pappa said, “and there are several state required audits done before, during, and after each election, which further ensure the reliability and integrity of the election.”
Meanwhile, Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria held a news conference to provide an update on progress of counting tens of thousands of mail-in ballots in Nevada’s most populous county.
Clark County, home to nearly 72% of the state’s voters and Nevada’s most Democrat-heavy hub, had roughly 84,000 outstanding mail ballots Wednesday, but released the results of some 14,000 of those, leaving about 70,000 left to be counted. Those include mail ballots received from the post office and about 57,000 that were dropped off by voters in drop boxes on Tuesday.
Mail ballots postmarked by Election Day and received by Saturday can still be counted under Nevada law.
In Washoe County, there are approximately 41,000 mail ballots still to be counted, and a few thousand expected to roll in from Nevada’s other 15 rural counties between now and Saturday.
With how tight the competitive races for U.S. Senate and House, governor and more up and down the ballot in Nevada, those ballots that have yet to be counted will be pivotal in deciding those outcomes.
The current margin in the race for Nevada’s U.S. Senate seat between incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto and Republican Adam Laxalt sits at just just 15,812. The margin in the gubernatorial race between Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak and Republican Joe Lombado is slightly larger, with Lombardo currently leading by 34,132 votes as of Thursday morning.
If the 14,000 ballots that were tallied by Clark County are and indication of how the remaining ballots will split, those leads could narrow quickly in the coming days. About 9,200, or 65%, of those votes were for Cortez Masto, while Laxalt won roughly 4,300, or about 30%. There were similar margins in the governor race, too, with Sisolak gaining 8,900 votes in that batch to Lombardo’s 4,400.
Gloria said that he will hold daily news conferences to provide updates until the counting process is complete, and results will be updated once per day.
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