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RITE SPOTS IRREGULARITIES WITH CLARK COUNTY ELECTION RECORDS RETENTION, RECOMMENDS STEPS TO REACH COMPLIANCE

WASHINGTON, DC – A year-long audit of public records conducted by RITE has produced overwhelming evidence that Clark County, NV, is violating the federal National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) by prematurely deleting records regarding its practices for canceling ineligible voters. The NVRA requires officials to retain these records for two years and make them available to the public upon request. Clark County has done neither and the county now faces litigation from RITE unless it immediately changes its practices and produces all available records responsive to RITE’s request.

“RITE has identified a new disappearing act in Las Vegas, but this one is far less entertaining than a magician on the Strip. By all indications, Clark County is deleting nearly all election-related emails after six months, rather than retaining them for two years as required by federal law and state law. RITE has tried for months to resolve this and other document-related issues with the county, but its requests for an explanation have been ignored.”

– Derek Lyons, President of RITE

In its audit, RITE uncovered substantial evidence that Clark County has a policy of deleting much of its election-related email after six months, including emails about its administration of important programs to remove ineligible voters from the voter registration rolls. Federal and state law require the county to retain these records for at least two years. Further, because RITE has been able to secure some of Clark County’s emails from other sources, if Clark County has not deleted them, it has refused to make these records available to RITE upon request, which also violates the NVRA.

RITE uncovered these facts after a year-long ordeal of trying to obtain internal emails and other records from Clark County as part of RITE’s broader audit of Nevada’s voter roll cleanup efforts. RITE worked with Clark County in good faith for months but ultimately, it only disclosed 169 emails in response to RITE’s comprehensive records requests. In comparison, Washoe County released over 4,300 emails in response to a nearly identical request, and even the Secretary of State has already disclosed more than 2,000 records in an ongoing production.

How RITE conducted its audit

RITE uncovered these violations by analyzing email “metadata” in the few emails it obtained, which revealed that Clark County appears to have a default 180-day destruction period for most emails sent to or from county election officials. RITE discovered this after finding that Washoe County and the Secretary of State disclosed dozens of emails that had Clark County officials on them and that Clark County itself should have produced to RITE but did not. RITE tried to obtain an explanation from the county for the anomalies, but the county has refused to respond to RITE’s recent inquiries.

What does the litigation notice mean?

The NVRA generally requires officials to be provided with a 90-day litigation notice before suing. RITE has laid out specific requirements and benchmarks for Clark County to meet to avoid litigation. RITE will work with the county in good faith to avoid costly litigation, but it must change its practices to comply with federal law. Clark County is also likely in violation of several state laws that require it to safeguard and preserve records, including those related to its voter registration practices.

The NVRA’s two-year retention policy and public records disclosure provision are key election transparency measures that allow the public to monitor officials’ compliance with voter registration laws, including those that require officials to remove non-residents and the deceased.

Clark County has 90 days to comply, after which RITE intends to sue to hold the county accountable to the law.

READ the litigation notice sent to Clark County, NV, HERE.

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Andrew C. McCarthy

Bestselling author Andrew C. McCarthy is a contributing editor at National Review, a senior fellow at National Review Institute, and a Fox News contributor. He is a former Chief Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York and led the terrorism prosecution against the “Blind Sheikh” (Omar Abdel Rahman) and eleven other jihadists for conducting a war of urban terrorism against the United States that included 

the 1993 World Trade Center  bombing and a plot to  bomb New York City landmarks. After working on other national security cases, including investigations in Africa after the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, he helped supervise the Justice Department’s command center near ground-zero in lower Manhattan following the 9/11 attacks. During his 20-year career as a prosecutor, he received numerous honors, including the Justice Department’s highest awards. He taught trial advocacy at New York Law School, and constitutional issues in criminal law at Fordham Law School. Andy speaks and writes widely on law and national security, radical Islam, politics, and culture. He has testified before Congress as an expert on issues of constitutional law, counterterrorism, and law-enforcement. In addition to his regular columns at National Review, Andy writes frequently for other major national publications. His most recent New York Times bestselling book is Ball of Collusion(Encounter Books, 2019), about the Russiagate controversy (an updated version was published in 2020). His other books include Willful Blindness (2008), The Grand Jihad (2010), Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy (2012), and Faithless Execution (2014). He has also written several pamphlets in the Broadside series published by Encounter Books, most recently Islam and Free Speech (2015).

Andrew C. McCarthy

Bestselling author Andrew C. McCarthy is a contributing editor at National Review, a senior fellow at National Review Institute, and a Fox News contributor. He is a former Chief Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York and led the terrorism prosecution against the “Blind Sheikh” (Omar Abdel Rahman) and eleven other jihadists for conducting a war of urban terrorism against the United States that included 

the 1993 World Trade Center  bombing and a plot to  bomb New York City landmarks. After working on other national security cases, including investigations in Africa after the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, he helped supervise the Justice Department’s command center near ground-zero in lower Manhattan following the 9/11 attacks. During his 20-year career as a prosecutor, he received numerous honors, including the Justice Department’s highest awards. He taught trial advocacy at New York Law School, and constitutional issues in criminal law at Fordham Law School. Andy speaks and writes widely on law and national security, radical Islam, politics, and culture. He has testified before Congress as an expert on issues of constitutional law, counterterrorism, and law-enforcement. In addition to his regular columns at National Review, Andy writes frequently for other major national publications. His most recent New York Times bestselling book is Ball of Collusion(Encounter Books, 2019), about the Russiagate controversy (an updated version was published in 2020). His other books include Willful Blindness (2008), The Grand Jihad (2010), Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy (2012), and Faithless Execution (2014). He has also written several pamphlets in the Broadside series published by Encounter Books, most recently Islam and Free Speech (2015).

Bobby Burchfield

Bobby R. Burchfield is a co-founder, with Karl Rove, of Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections, Inc., and currently serves as RITE’s Chairman. Before retiring from the practice of law in March 2021, after serving as a partner in three international law firms, Bobby was a trial and appellate  lawyer who tried cases before judges and juries and argued appeals throughout the United States. His cases addressed a broad  range of subjects  including antitrust, commercial  disputes, constitutional law,  election law, and class action issues. Bobby argued two important First Amendment cases

in the Supreme Court of the United States (McConnell v. FEC and McCutcheon v. FEC), as well as two dozen appeals in the lower courts. Over a 40-year career, Bobby never lost a jury trial. Among other recognitions, he was listed for many years in Best Lawyers in America, and Chambers Partners rated Bobby highly for Commercial Litigation and for Election Law. Bobby is an Adjunct Professor at George Washington Law School, teaching a seminar entitled “Fundamentals of Free Speech as Applied to Contemporary Issues.” He also serves on the Board of Trustees at Wake Forest University, is Vice President for Finance for the Executive Board of the National Capital Area Council of the Boy Scouts (NCAC), is Chair of two Super PACs, and serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board of the George Washington Law School. A graduate of Wake Forest University (BA 1976 with distinction in Economics and Political Theory) and the George Washington Law School (1979 with high honors), where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review, Bobby clerked for the Hon. Ruggero J. Aldisert of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He served as General Counsel of President George H.W. Bush’s Re-Election Campaign in 1992, by appointment of President George W. Bush on the Antitrust Advisory Commission (2005-07), and at the request of President Donald J. Trump as Ethics Advisor to the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust (2017-2021).

Bobby Burchfield

Bobby R. Burchfield is a co-founder, with Karl Rove, of Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections, Inc., and currently serves as RITE’s Chairman. Before retiring from the practice of law in March 2021, after serving as a partner in three international law firms, Bobby was a trial and appellate  lawyer who tried cases before judges and juries and argued appeals throughout the United States. His cases addressed a broad  range of subjects  including antitrust, commercial  disputes, constitutional law,  election law, and class action issues. Bobby argued two important First Amendment cases

in the Supreme Court of the United States (McConnell v. FEC and McCutcheon v. FEC), as well as two dozen appeals in the lower courts. Over a 40-year career, Bobby never lost a jury trial. Among other recognitions, he was listed for many years in Best Lawyers in America, and Chambers Partners rated Bobby highly for Commercial Litigation and for Election Law. Bobby is an Adjunct Professor at George Washington Law School, teaching a seminar entitled “Fundamentals of Free Speech as Applied to Contemporary Issues.” He also serves on the Board of Trustees at Wake Forest University, is Vice President for Finance for the Executive Board of the National Capital Area Council of the Boy Scouts (NCAC), is Chair of two Super PACs, and serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board of the George Washington Law School. A graduate of Wake Forest University (BA 1976 with distinction in Economics and Political Theory) and the George Washington Law School (1979 with high honors), where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review, Bobby clerked for the Hon. Ruggero J. Aldisert of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He served as General Counsel of President George H.W. Bush’s Re-Election Campaign in 1992, by appointment of President George W. Bush on the Antitrust Advisory Commission (2005-07), and at the request of President Donald J. Trump as Ethics Advisor to the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust (2017-2021).