“Possible and Probable Malfunctions in the Voting or Counting Devices Used to

 Record, Tabulate and Report the Votes”  

 

Las Vegas, NV (June 28, 2016) – Six candidates from the June 2016 primary election have filed “Statements of Contest” in Clark County District Court. The grounds for this Contest are NRS 293.410(f), where there was a possible and probable malfunction in the voting or counting devices used to record and tabulate the votes.

The six Assembly District (AD) candidates are: Diana Orrock (AD9), Steve Sanson (AD13), Connie Foust (A19), Tina Trenner (AD36), Mary Rooney (AD41), and Blain Jones (AD21).

“The candidates are seeking law-authorized joint reviews to ensure we know the full truth for each race. This would be an audit on both sides of the election system to discover why some inexplicable electronic results were reported in this year’s primary. The six candidates have asked the Courts to follow Nevada Revised Statutes to allow candidates to team with election officials to compare the sealed, raw ballot records in the eight contested races to the electronically reported results.  When electronic machines and/or processing systems appear to contain errors, detailed reviews of source records are allowed by state and federal laws.  This is a lawful and reasonable request by honorable candidates simply seeking the truth expressed by voters,” explained Assemblyman Brent Jones of AD35.

Mary Rooney added, “Not even election officials know for certain if the physical election records will match the electronically processed tallies in our races.  With so many national reports of similar election machine failures and increasing hacking into government computers, candidates are obligated to our sponsors, voters, and all NV citizens to know that our election works properly. Trustworthy elections are the foundation of our Republic. It is our duty to help ensure there is end-to-end elections integrity.”

The initial discrepancies were discovered by independent research into County Statements of Vote by Nevada’s Citizens Task Force for Voter Rights.  Precincts in all six of these races showed large and consistent discrepancies between the turnout numbers (those that came to vote) and the reported vote tabulations on the Statements of Vote posted by County Election Divisions. But, one should expect a high correlation between primary voters present and votes cast in key races.

“For example, one report showed 288 came to vote at a particular precinct, but the Clark County Election Department shows only 98 votes were cast.  That is an unreasonable spread for our district.  Those lost votes in just one precinct are more than the winning spread in my race,” added Tina Trenner (AD36 candidate). “And, that is just one suspect area.  Our rural district folks take voting seriously,” Tina continued.  “It would be a rare case for a person to go to the trouble to stop ranching, mining or farm work to travel long distances to show up to vote, and then fail to cast their ballots for important races. Most of those 288 voters should have a physical ballot record showing they cast their votes.” she concluded.

NRS 293.410 gives the District Court five (5) days to set a hearing date. If the physical ballot records fail to match the electronic tallies, the judge is supposed to rule that the sealed, physical records prevail.