This year there were two election deniers on Nevada ballots for the midterm elections: Republican attorney general candidate Sigal Chattah and Republican secretary of state candidate Jim Marchant.
By 8:40 a.m. ET Wednesday, Chattah was trailing (46.17%) her opponent, incumbent Democrat Aaron Ford (50.54%). Marchant was leading (48.48%) his main opponent, Democrat Francisco ‘Cisco’ Aguilar (47.36%), according to state election results.
“The ‘election denial’ movement originated in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election,” according to the Brookings Institution. “It included false claims about the power of the vice president and Congress to turn aside presidential electors,” and has been further spread by former Republican President Donald Trump.
Election denial played a part in the deadly Capitol riot last January, according to a House Select Committee investigating the incident.
Nevada lists eight different types of voter fraud claims on its government elections website: double voting, ineligible voter, dead voter, voter suppression, voter registration fraud, voter impersonation, vote buying and election official fraud. However, a New York Times study recently found that voter fraud cases are generally rare.
“There’s a number of falsities around the election process that have frankly just spun out of control since 2020 and starting with the 2020 election,” Amber McReynolds, an election administration expert, told Audacy’s “The Homestretch” podcast leading up to the midterm elections.
Chattah – a longtime Nevada attorney who campaigned on gun rights, religious rights and more – has ties to the Capitol riot and the election denier movement according to reports compiled by the End Citizens United organization.
Marchant, a politician who has a background in the technology industry, claims on his campaign website that he was a victim of election fraud.
“In 2020 Jim ran for Congress for Nevada’s Congressional District 4 and was a victim of election fraud,” it reads. “Jim was endorsed by President Donald J. Trump, Congressman Jim Jordan, Congressman Andy Biggs, Congressman Paul Gosar, and the House Freedom Caucus.”
According to POLITICO, Marchant “could fundamentally reshape elections” in Nevada. Already, he “has called for eliminating mail voting, curtailing early voting and pushing for hand counts of ballots – despite evidence that the practice is more error-prone than using machines – and could generally make it more difficult to vote in the state,” said the outlet.
Related
Related
