Nevada’s Clark County on Thursday hit back at former President Trump’s claims that the local voting system was “corrupt” amid the tense wait for results on the state’s Senate seat.
Trump’s favored Republican nominee Adam Laxalt is slightly ahead of Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada as of Thursday, but Clark County election officials say the ballot counting process in the state’s largest county could drag into next week.
“Clark County, Nevada, has a corrupt voting system (be careful Adam!), as do many places in our soon to be Third World Country. Arizona even said ‘by the end of the week!’ – They want more time to cheat!” Trump had said on Truth Social.
In a rare move for a jurisdiction, Clark County on Twitter called Trump’s claims “outrageous” and said the former president “is obviously still misinformed about the law and our election processes.”
“First, we could not speed up the process even if we wanted to,” the county argued, noting that state law allows ballots to come in as late as Saturday, Nov. 12, as long as they were postmarked on or before Election Day.
Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria said in a news conference Wednesday that Election Day votes have been counted, but that tens of thousands of mail-in votes had yet to be tallied, with more still expected to roll in.
Other factors could draw out the counting process in the close race, Clark County explained in its Twitter post.
If there is a discrepancy on a mail ballot signature, election officials are required to give the affected voter until Monday to come in and cure their signature — and to ensure voters don’t cast ballots twice, officials have to carefully process provisional ballots, which could take until Wednesday.
“All of our election systems are certified by the state and federal governments for use in the State of Nevada, and there are several state required audits done before, during and after each election, which further ensure the reliability and integrity of the election,” Clark County said.