By Riley Snyder/The Nevada Independent
Nevada legislators have approved spending another $2.2 million to facilitate Nevada’s switch to a largely vote-by-mail state ahead of the 2022 election, pushing the total cost north of $14 million.
The funding request, passed unanimously by members of the Interim Finance Committee on Wednesday, comes from the secretary of state’s office and was described by Deputy Secretary of State for Elections Mark Wlaschin as the list of necessities to successfully implement new mail voting requirements for the 2022 election.
“There were certainly some nice-to-haves that we had discussed that may come further on down the line, but this request, specifically, [are] the essentials for the 2022 election cycle based on input from all 17 of the counties,” he said during the meeting.
The additional funding comes on top of $12.2 million already allocated by lawmakers last year as part of AB321, the bill implementing the move to permanent, expanded mail voting.
Under the law, which was opposed by all legislative Republicans, every active registered voter will be sent a mail ballot before a primary or general election. Inactive voters, who are legally registered to vote but don’t have a current address on file with election officials, will not be sent a mail ballot.
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Voter rolls are notoriously inaccurate – their level of accuracy is a function of the effort/attention given by election officials to clear the rolls of deceased, or eligible voters who have moved, etc. – a daunting task and one impossible to ensure accuracy. Thus, mailing ballots to voters not soliciting such a mailing, such as the absentee provisions require, does not inspire confidence in the overall election process.
And that brings me to my second point – exactly what voter identification process is going to be used to ensure returned mail-in ballots have actually been filled out and submitted by the intended registered voter? Computerized signature verification, or . . . ? I would like to know the answer. I would also like to know what, if any, ballot harvesting safeguards are to be employed.
In my opinion, the only way to ensure an election process in which we can have a high degree of confidence that those participating in the process are legally/constitutionally eligible to vote centers around a means of government issued voter ID. By definition, wholly unsolicited ballots sent by mail to a last known address leaves far too much room for fraud. We are required to have/show ID for virtually all transaction – we should require as much in order to vote.
Remember – for every ballot illegally cast a citizen exercising their voting right has their vote cancelled.