written by Paul Goldberg May 27, 2020

Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany tweeted:

In NV, excess ballots sent to inactive voters piled up in Las Vegas trash cans.

“What’s going to happen w/ these things, they’re NOT SECURED at all & there are THOUSANDS of them just sitting here. This just seems fraudulent to me, something stinks here.”

Fox News reported May 15th red flags are being raised about the all-mail voting system being used in Nevada’s most populous county ahead of the state’s June 9 primary election amid reports that thousands of ballots are being sent to inactive voters — fueling concerns about the possibility of voter fraud and ballot harvesting.

Thousands of ballots have been sent out by the Clark County Election Department to inactive voters – those who have not voted in recent elections, a roster that can include people who either have moved or are deceased – and the envelopes are piling up in post office trays, outside apartment complexes and on community bulletin boards in and around Las Vegas.

The excess ballots have drawn complaints from local residents, who worry that anyone could pick up a ballot off the street and cast a fraudulent vote, as well as from Republican Party officials in the state who see a nefarious motive behind the vote-by-mail system being employed by the Democrat-dominated Clark County Commission.

“What’s going to happen with these things, they’re not secured at all and there are thousands of them just sitting here,” Jenny Trobiani, a postal worker in Clark County who told Fox News that she has seen hundreds of ballots being mailed to inactive voters.

“This just seems fraudulent to me, something stinks here,” she added.

While the coronavirus pandemic has elevated the conversation surrounding mail-in ballots to the national stage, the debate over the issue has been batted back and forth between Democrats and Republicans in the Silver State for a while.

Most recently, the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and progressive political nonprofit Priorities USA dropped a request for immediate relief in a lawsuit against Clark County after officials agreed to implement multiple changes to voting in June that included sending out ballots to inactive voters and opening up two additional in-person voting sites. The lawsuit, however, to eliminate the signature verification process is still in the courts.

“The Clark County Registrar made the right decision in moving to mail ballots to all registered voters — not just those deemed ‘active,’ expanding the number of in-person polling locations, and updating their signature review process,” Nevada Democrats said in a statement earlier this month.

According to the court filing, the changes will cost county taxpayers at least $323,000.

Democrats are still miffed that the state’s existing election laws outlaw “ballot harvesting” – calling the statute unconstitutional and raising the specter of further litigation. Ballot harvesting, or the practice of allowing political operatives and others to collect voters’ ballots and turn them in en masse to polling stations, has drawn bipartisan concerns of fraud from election watchers.

The decision by Clark County officials to agree to Democratic demands has vexed Republican Party leaders in the state.

“The Democratic county commissioners were working with the Democratic Party on some kind of backroom deal,” Rick Gorka, the deputy communications director for the Republican National Committee, told Fox News. “If Trump was accused of doing this, there would be an outrage.”