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Athar Haseebullah

Executive Director

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Sadmira Ramic

Senior Staff Attorney

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LAS VEGAS — The ACLU of Nevada has filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit aimed at purging over 19,000 registered voters from Clark County’s voter rolls just weeks before the November election. Over a dozen of the challenged voters are ACLUNV members. This marks the second intervention attempt by the ACLU of Nevada this week to prevent mass voter challenges. ACLUNV also filed a similar motion on Saturday in Washoe County after a records request established that seven ACLUNV members’ voting eligibility was challenged in a mass voter challenge aimed at purging over 11,000 registered voters from Washoe County’s voter rolls.

The lawsuit, filed by Citizen Outreach Foundation, seeks to remove these voters based solely on their names appearing in the National Change of Address (NCOA) database, putting thousands of voters at risk of disenfranchisement. The nonprofit organization argues that federal law prohibits conducting systemic voter roll maintenance within 90 days of an election and that reliance on the NCOA database alone is insufficient to challenge voter eligibility under both state and federal law.

The ACLU of Nevada is calling on the court to protect the rights of Clark County voters and reject this attempt to remove them from the rolls. A hearing date has not yet been set.

ACLU of Nevada executive director Athar Haseebullah said:

“This lawsuit is part of a coordinated nationwide attack on voting rights. Voters are being systemically targeted using flawed data from unreliable sources to purge them from voter rolls and prevent them from receiving their mail ballots. These tactics are the latest form of voter suppression pushed by conspiracy theorists to undermine faith in our election system, but like other extremist voter suppression efforts brought through litigation, will fail in Nevada. This isn’t just about protecting the voters—it’s about protecting our democracy.”

ACLU of Nevada voting rights attorney Sadmira Ramic said:

“These challenges are attempting to manipulate the legal system to disenfranchise voters through reckless and unwarranted actions which both go against state and federal law. Voters should not have to fear losing their right to vote because their name appeared in a database. The stakes couldn’t be higher, and we won’t stand by while our members and voters across Nevada face the possibility of their voices being silenced. Our intervention in this case is critical to ensuring that voters aren’t wrongfully removed from the rolls at a time when every vote counts.”

Related Content

Court Case
Oct 02, 2024
Graphic with a red and purple overlay showing a close-up of a marked election ballot with checkboxes and a pen. On the left is the white ACLU of Nevada logo. On the right, separated by a vertical white line, the text reads “Citizen Outreach Foundation v. Lorena Portillo” in a bold, serif font.
  • Voting Rights

Citizen Outreach Foundation v. Lorena Portillo

Citizen Outreach Foundation seeks to remove over 19,000 registered voters from the Clark County voter rolls ahead of the November 2024 presidential election. The removals are based on National Change of Address (NCOA) data, which they claim shows these individuals are no longer residing at their registered addresses. The ACLU of Nevada (ACLUNV) has filed a motion to intervene in the case, arguing that removing voters based solely on NCOA data violates both federal and state laws, which prevent systemic voter roll maintenance within 90 days of an election. The ACLU also argues that these challenges do not meet the requirements under Nevada law. At least fourteen ACLU members are among the voters being challenged. If the requested relief is granted, thousands of eligible voters could be wrongfully purged from the voter rolls, impairing their right to vote by mail or altogether disenfranchising them just weeks before the election. The organization further asserts that such a decision would set a dangerous precedent, leading to mass, arbitrary voter challenges. ACLUNV seeks to ensure that the voter roll maintenance laws are followed, safeguarding the right to vote for all eligible voters in Clark County.