Earlier this year, a conservative group in Nevada filed allegations with county election officials that more than 30,000 Nevadans had appeared to move and might no longer be eligible to vote in the jurisdiction where they were registered. 

However, many of the challenges were never considered after guidance from the Secretary of State’s Office.

The monthslong saga — which culminated last month after the group abandoned three lawsuits seeking to force investigations into the challenges — has revealed that the applicable state laws make it harder for mass challenges to pass legal scrutiny. The accuracy of Nevada’s voter rolls came under increased scrutiny this year after GOP groups filed a slew of lawsuits, all of which were either withdrawn or dismissed, and this dispute was also part of what the nation’s top Democratic elections attorney called a trend of Republicans challenging millions of voters’ registrations before the election.

Additionally, the dispute has also raised questions surrounding the legality over the method used by the conservative group. 

Facts of the case

The Pigpen Project, a group run by Nevada conservative activist Chuck Muth, called on county election officials this summer to notify and investigate the subjects of the voter registration challenges as outlined in Nevada law.

The challenges were based on data collected through the U.S. Postal Service’s National Change of Address (NCOA) database, a licensed product solely designed for organizations to update their mailing lists. It has also been used by election offices nationwide to verify voter registration statuses, and if necessary, update their mailing lists to reflect changes of address.

Reached over the phone by The Nevada Independent, Muth declined to answer questions about his use of the database, but said “we’re not misusing NCOA.” 

But most of the challenges were never addressed.

Nevada law requires that anyone filing a challenge to a voter’s registration have “personal knowledge” of the facts alleged in the challenge. State regulations interpret this statute to mean that anyone challenging a voter’s registration must have "firsthand knowledge through experience or observation of the facts upon each ground that the challenge is based.”

In a memo in late August to county election officials, the Secretary of State’s Office said that the use of “databases or compilations of information” does not mean that a challenger has “personal knowledge” of the facts alleged in the challenge.

This interpretation is one reason why mass voter challenges in Nevada are likely to face obstacles in passing legal scrutiny.

Sadmira Ramic, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said in an interview that the personal knowledge requirement is to ensure people are not wrongfully removed from the voter rolls.

“[State law] creates guardrails for what a proper voter challenge is,” Ramic said. “We don't want it to lead to the possibility that we now have a voter who is improperly challenged, and then is disenfranchised and unable to vote.

“It's not that the statutes create obstacles to voter challenges. It's that the Pigpen Project and others want to circumvent the law and do it their way.”

In response to the state’s interpretation, the Citizen Outreach Foundation — another group headed by Muth — filed three lawsuits seeking to force local election officials in Carson City and Clark, Storey and Washoe counties to process the voter registration challenges, arguing that the officials were breaking state law by not investigating the reports. 

Federal and state law prohibit the cancellation of a voter’s registration without their approval until the voter has failed to respond to a notice and has not voted in the two general elections after the notice was delivered.

Registration can be canceled more quickly if fraud is suspected. After receiving a report of a fraudulent voter registration, a county clerk will meet with the district attorney, who can determine whether there is probable cause to believe a voter’s identity or residence may be fraudulent.

If probable cause is established, the county clerk will mail a notice — with a return receipt requested — to the voter that outlines the grounds for canceling the registration. If the county clerk does not receive sufficient proof of a person's identity and residence within 15 days after receiving the return receipt, the voter’s registration will be canceled. 

But less than one month after the group filed the lawsuits, they were suddenly withdrawn because Muth said in a blog post that they were turning into “an expensive crap shoot.” 

However, the withdrawals also came days after lawyers representing the local officials requested that Muth provide more information about how his organization gained access to the NCOA database, which was ultimately never provided to the court.

Change of address database

State law allows county clerks to enter into an agreement with the Postal Service or any other authorized person to obtain change-of-address data to update their voter registration and mailing lists.

However, this does not mean that the change-of-address data is available for private citizens to challenge other people’s registration statuses.

Muth has said to state election officials that he was authorized to use the database, but Postal Service spokesperson John Hyatt said disclosure of data gathered through NCOA “as evidence in challenges to voter registration is not permitted by the license,” presenting another obstacle facing those wishing to file mass voter challenges in Nevada.

Violations of NCOA agreements could be subject to a misdemeanor charge and a fine of up to $5,000, though a federal privacy expert said these incidents are rarely prosecuted, and it is unclear if Muth himself would have been the violator of the license agreement because he declined to provide details about how he gained access to the database.

Muth’s challenges were part of a handful of voter registration-related lawsuits filed by Republican groups this year, none of which have succeeded so far. 

The Republican National Committee and Nevada GOP lost a lawsuit that alleged the state’s voter rolls were being insufficiently maintained, while another one alleging noncitizens are on the state’s voter rolls is still pending in Carson City. 

Another conservative group — the Public Interest Legal Foundation — also filed suits alleging that commercial addresses were listed on Washoe and Clark County voter rolls. The group withdrew the Clark County case after a county investigation concluded that many of the allegations were valid residences or had been connected to a voided registration, but the Washoe one is still ongoing.