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A top-ranking Nevada Republican has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of four election observers challenging the recently passed state law making it a felony to harass election workers.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal district court by attorney and Nevada Republican National Committeewoman Sigal Chattah, alleges that SB406 would criminalize actions Chattah says are legal under Nevada laws about election observation.
Nevada lawmakers this year voted unanimously in both chambers to approve SB406, which was signed into law by Gov. Joe Lombardo, a Republican, on May 24. Under the law, those who harass, intimidate or use force on election workers performing their duties in Nevada could face a felony, fine and up to four years in prison.
The lawsuit — which names Lombardo and Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar as defendants and asks the court to prohibit the state from enforcing the law — argues that the SB406 is not specific enough about who is classified as an election worker and what constitutes “intimidating” behavior toward them. It claims the legislation is “an absolute contradiction” with the intent of existing laws allowing public observation of election operations.
Representatives from Lombardo’s office and the secretary of state’s office declined to comment on the lawsuit. News of the lawsuit was first reported by The Nevada Globe.
All of the plaintiffs — two from Washoe County and two from Clark County — have previously worked as poll observers, ballot runners or ballot counting room observers in their respective counties, according to the lawsuit. One of the plaintiffs is far-right GOP donor and activist Robert Beadles — a native Californian, cryptocurrency investor and purveyor of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, prominent Jewish families and other “elites.”
“We need to ensure that the legislation is very clear on who it protects and what it protects them from,” Chattah said in an interview with The Nevada Independent.
Chattah, who represents the Nevada GOP at the national level and unsuccessfully ran for attorney general in the 2022 election, said she does not see any significance in suing a prominent member of her own political party.
“I don’t look at it as suing a Republican governor or a Democratic secretary of state,” she told The Indy over the phone. “Bad legislation is bad legislation.”
Alida Benson, executive director of the Nevada Republican Party clarified in an email that “this lawsuit was brought by Sigal Chattah against the State of Nevada in her private capacity as an attorney representing her clients.”
When asked about concerns over the state’s shortage of election workers, Chattah said, “I don’t buy the narrative about the election worker shortage. It’s a shortage that is coordinated.”
She alleged that conservative groups, including the Republican Party, have come up with thousands of volunteers, but counties and the state have chosen not to hire them.
The bill was a priority for Aguilar, a Democrat, after threats against election officials spiked in 2020 and 2022. Combined with burnout from keeping up with ever-changing policy, these threats have led to turnover in the top election positions in over half of Nevada counties.
Last week, in a California hearing attempting to disbar former President Donald Trump campaign lawyer John Eastman for using “baseless legal theories” to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, Nevada’s Deputy Secretary of State for Elections Mark Wlaschin testified that threats had led to an “exodus” of election workers in the state.
“It’s a steep uphill climb to regain the confidence from voters because in many cases they were convinced the 2020 election cycle had fraud that wasn’t there,” he said in the hearing.
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