Two additional Nevada counties sued over blocked voter challenges

By Chuck Muth

On Monday, September 23,Citizen Outreach Foundation filed two additional lawsuits in Clark and Washoe counties asking the courts to intervene in a dispute with Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar.

The issue involves thousands of challenges the Pigpen Project had filed with the counties alleging certain voters were no longer eligible to be on the voter rolls because they appear to have moved from the residence where they are registered to vote.

It’s critical that these challenges be processed quickly to assure that any mail-in ballots received from ineligible voters are “red flagged” and investigated BEFORE they are opened and counted.

The new lawsuits are similar to the one filed last Friday for Carson City and Storey counties.

As many of Nevada’s rural counties had been working with us before Secretary Aguilar’s August 27 memo directing them to stop processing our challenges, we’re holding off on filing any additional lawsuits there, hoping once this issue is resolved in the other jurisdictions they’ll go back to processing them as before.

The exception under consideration is Nye County.

The county Clerk there, Cori A. Freidhof, has been particularly hostile and non-cooperative with our efforts.

On August 23, 2024, I sent a public records request to Ms. Freidhof simply asking for confirmation that she had received and processed the voter challenges we submitted to her office on July 29, 2024.

She didn’t even give us the courtesy of a reply.

On August 28, 2024, we submitted a new batch of challenges. In response, Ms. Freidhof replied…

“Pursuant to NRS 239.0107.1.c.1., notice is hereby given that this office is unable to make any public records available at this time, and the earliest date and time that this office reasonably believes any public records may be available is on or before the close of business on 11/15/2024.”

That response was ridiculous and unacceptable. As such, I replied…

“Ms. Freidhof,

“As this has now become a matter of public information, I’ll cc’ing Mr. Arnold Knightly, who is the Public Information Officer for Nye County.

“The request you responded to below was NOT a public records request. So NRS 239.0107.1.c.1 is not applicable. This was a voter ‘challenge’ request under NRS 293.535. It was the same type of challenge that we filed with your office on July 29, 2024.

“However, last Friday I DID send you a public records request (attached) seeking copies of the challenge letters you were required to send out to the challenged voters or, in the alternative, provide an explanation as why those challenges were not filed. The relevant part of the request…

“’…I am writing today simply to request a copy of the notification that your office sent to the challenged voter and/or an explanation as to why such notice wasn’t sent if, in fact, no such notification was mailed.’

“As you noted in your reference to the public records law, you have five days to respond to such a request. Today marks the fifth business day and you have not, at the time this email was sent, responded to that public records request.

 “The fact is, we only submitted 33 voter challenges to your office on July 29, 2024. A half-dozen other rural counties received similar challenges, processed them, and sent us copies. So this is certainly not an undue burden on your part, especially since, as noted in my request, all we were looking for was confirmation as to whether you sent the notices out or not.

“Now, since you noted the public records law, I’ll excerpt the relevant parts of NRS 239.011…

“’If a request for copies of a public record is denied or unreasonably delayed the requester may apply to the district court in the county in which the book or record is located for an order: Requiring the person who has legal custody or control of the record to provide a copy to the requester. If the requester prevails, the requester is entitled to recover from the governmental entity that has legal custody or control of the record his or her costs and reasonable attorney’s fees in the proceeding.’

“I don’t think either of us has the time or needs the aggravation of going to court. And considering how minor our request is — it could be answered in an email that would take all of 10 seconds to send — odds are the court would rule in our favor and Nye County taxpayers would have to pick up our legal bills. And if the court found that you did not ‘act in good faith,’ you could possibly be held personally liable.

“Let’s not do that. I would prefer a cooperative relationship with your office and an open line of communication. So would you please just let me know if you sent the verification letters out to the 33 voters we ‘challenged’ on July 29? And if not, please explain why not.

“Thank you for your attention to this matter. We’re not off to a great start, but let’s find ways to work together for mutual interests from here on out. Perhaps lunch sometime when you’re in Pahrump? I live in Las Vegas, so that’s not too far out of the way and election security is certainly important enough to make it worthwhile.”

Crickets. No response whatsoever.

We at the Pigpen Project have bent over backwards trying to work cooperatively with all 17 of Nevada’s county clerks/registrars on this very difficult and complicated issue. And we understand that the clerks/registrars are under-staffed and under a lot of pressure with the presidential election coming up.

But assuring the integrity and security of this election is critical so that Nevada voters can feel confident in the results regardless of who wins and who loses.

For Ms. Freidhof to just blow us off and ignore the law — especially the public records act that has nothing to do with the voter challenge dispute — is, at best, irresponsible and certainly not acting in good faith.

If you’d like to contact her, her email address is cafreidhof@nyecountynv.gov and her office phone number is (775) 482-8134.

She also lists her cell phone number in her official correspondence as (775) 253-5622.

But, PLEASE, be respectful and professional. No profanity or personal attacks. All we want is for Ms. Freidhof to follow the law and do the job she was appointed to do.

Thanks for helping us out!

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The Pigpen Project is a project of Citizen Outreach Foundation, an IRS-approved 501(c)(3) grassroots organization founded in 1992. Donations are tax-deductible for federal income tax purposes.