Right-Wing Group Files Multiple Voter Challenge Lawsuits in Nevada Counties

By Matt Cohen

A voter registration form paper copy in the USA is shown up close, with a hand holding a pen about to fill out the sheet.

A right-wing group filed three lawsuits in four Nevada counties over the past several days, challenging local election officials’ failure to process voter roll challenges. 

The lawsuits, which stem from a series of voter challenges submitted by the right-wing Pigpen Project, accuses election officials in Carson City, Storey County, Clark County and Washoe County of refusing to process the voter challenges. The Pigpen Project, a grassroots group started by longtime Nevada-based conservative activist and lobbyist Chuck Muth, filed voter challenges in nearly every Nevada county in June and July, claiming that his organization identified more than 30,000 registered voters who should be removed from voter rolls. This includes nearly 20,000 voters in Clark County and more than 11,000 voters in Washoe County

But the lawsuits, filed by the Citizens Outreach Foundation and Muth, claim that these voter challenges were refused by officials in Carson City, Storey, Clark and Washoe counties, in violation of state law. 

These lawsuits come a little over a month after Nevada launched its new statewide unified voter registration system, which stores voter registration data for every registered voter in the state in a singular database, rather than multiple databases for each county. 

“Instead of having, you know, 17 different systems doing list maintenance for our voter rolls, we have a single system now that allows us to directly manage that information and have a streamlined, unified process across the state for list maintenance,” Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar (D) said in an interview when the new system launched. The new system is meant to keep better records of voter registration, in part to make it harder for third-party groups like the Pigpen Project to challenge county voter registrations rolls. 

In the three lawsuits filed by Muth and Citizens Outreach Foundation, the petitioners are asking the court to force county officials to process the voter challenges. 

Learn more about the Carson City and Storey County case here. 

Learn more about the Clark County case here.

Learn more about the Washoe County case here. 

This post was updated on Sept. 25 to reflect the number of voter challenges filed in Clark and Washoe counties.