On the Record: Nevada Republican secretary of state candidate Jim Marchant

That is an installment in a sequence of “On the File” items highlighting the coverage stances of candidates working for main workplaces within the 2022 Nevada election. Verify again within the coming days and weeks for added protection. You will discover our protection of Marchant’s opponent, Cisco Aguilar, right here.

Within the race for Nevada secretary of state, former Republican assemblyman and one-time congressional candidate Jim Marchant has minimize a nationwide profile as a outstanding denier of the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and vocal critic of the state’s election administration.

Marchant — who additionally unsuccessfully sued for a brand new election in his misplaced congressional bid following unfounded fraud claims — was among the many first Republicans to launch a marketing campaign for secretary of state. Although he was out-fundraised within the Republican major by Reno-area actual property developer Jesse Haw, he secured the secretary of state nomination in a crowded major discipline with 37.6 % of the vote.

On the path, he has most frequently talked about elections, together with saying that he wouldn’t have licensed President Joe Biden’s electoral victory had he been secretary of state and that Nevada votes haven’t counted “for many years,” due to a “cabal” rigging elections.

A assessment of fraud claims from the 2020 election by outgoing Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske discovered no “evidentiary assist” for claims of widespread fraud. Her workplace stated later that, following a assessment of machines and workplace protocols, that it was “sure” Nevada voting machines weren’t compromised.

Marchant is amongst a nationwide “America First” slate of secretary of state candidates who deny the legitimacy of the 2020 election, he has been backed by outstanding election deniers like MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, has stated QAnon influencer Juan O Savin urged him to run for secretary of state, and has seen a monetary enhance from a national-level equipment of Republicans constructed across the post-2020 fraud claims.

Most notably, that features the America Mission — a gaggle based by former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne and former Trump Nationwide Safety Advisor Michael Flynn that has to this point given greater than $136,000 to a political motion committee, Conservatives for Election Integrity PAC, managed by Marchant.

That PAC has drawn at the very least two formal complaints, together with one from his former GOP opponent, Haw, in Might, and one other from the Democrat-aligned PAC Finish Residents United, which accused Marchant of utilizing his PAC’s sources to spice up his personal election bid and flout marketing campaign finance limits.

Nevada’s secretary of state maintains numerous duties, although the job primarily entails election administration, sustaining the state’s marketing campaign finance database and submitting techniques, and overseeing enterprise licensing, company registration and notaries.

Marchant is working in opposition to Democrat Cisco Aguilar, a lawyer and former member of the state’s athletic fee. The winner will substitute Cegavske, who’s termed out of workplace.

Marchant’s marketing campaign didn’t reply to a number of requests for an interview for our “On the File” sequence. A abstract of his coverage positions, taken from public statements and media appearances, is included under.

On elections

Throughout a candidate forum final month in Pahrump, Marchant informed an viewers that he took a “deep dive” into the state’s election administration insurance policies following his loss in Congressional District 4 in 2020, and that “what I realized is horrifying,” partly as a result of election techniques have been too advanced.

“One of many issues we will do after I get there’s simplify the election system,” he stated. “One of many issues that I realized, it’s so difficult proper now to placed on an election. It is wonderful we’ve the integrity that we’ve there, which isn’t lots. So we will change that. We will simplify the system, and most significantly, we’re going to open it up.”

Marchant’s push for simplicity and transparency, in his view, has already begun beneath the auspices of a multi-county effort to ditch the usage of digital voting machines and implement hand-counted paper ballots as an alternative.

Earlier this yr, Marchant and others pitched the usage of hand-counted paper ballots as an answer to unfounded claims of vote-rigging.

“With the paper ballots, hand-counted on the precinct stage, decentralized — we’re going in opposition to what the forces need,” Marchant informed Nye County commissioners in March. “They need centralized [systems] to allow them to manipulate it. So if we go in opposition to that and get again to decentralized … that is how we will assure that we’ve a good and clear election.”

Through the Pahrump discussion board, Marchant claimed that voting machines have been “simple” to hack, and known as for a “non-computer” election system.

Commissioners later adopted the proposal, becoming a member of Esmeralda County in ending the usage of voting machines. Extra just lately, the county’s latest clerk, Mark Kampf — who additionally denies the legitimacy of the 2020 election and has promoted election conspiracies — sparred with Cegavske’s workplace over new laws for hand-counting. Ultimately, state election officers authorized a compromise that noticed these laws carried out — with out making use of to Nye.

Nye County can be by far the most important county hand-counting ballots with greater than 32,000 registered voters. Esmeralda and Lander counties, which hand-counted major ballots this yr, counted simply 317 and roughly 1,500 ballots, respectively. Exterior teams have raised issues that the transfer would introduce human error into the counting course of.

Marchant has additionally promised to “do away with ERIC,” or the Digital Registration Info Heart. A nonprofit managed by 33 member-states, ERIC permits states to share voter registration data with one another and with the federal authorities, and permits states to determine duplicate registrations to be able to hold their respective voter rolls up to date.

Within the wake of the 2020 election, ERIC emerged as a goal for right-wing election deniers, who accused this system, with out proof, of functioning as a part of an enormous left-wing conspiracy funded by billionaire George Soros.

Marchant, within the mould of many Republicans each in Nevada and throughout the nation, has backed the implementation of voter I.D. laws that will require exhibiting state identification to vote. He has additionally frequently criticized the implementation of common mail-in voting, and implicitly linked the introduction of vote-by mail with alleged fraud.

He has additionally known as for a ban on mail-ballot drop packing containers, and as late as October of final yr, called for a nationwide audit of 2020 election outcomes. Republicans in key battleground states have jockeyed for such audits, usually in a bid to justify fraud claims. Nonetheless, these audits have additionally not discovered proof of widespread fraud, and election officers have been particularly important of probably the most outstanding audit in Arizona’s Maricopa County.

In the summertime of 2020, Nevada Democrats authorized sweeping election adjustments throughout a particular legislative session, together with the creation of common mail ballots designed as a response to the pandemic. Later, in the course of the common legislative session in 2021, the Democratic majority made a lot of the adjustments everlasting with AB321.

In June, Marchant informed a conservative radio host that he backed a proposal that will pressure all voters to re-register — an thought just like one floated by Pennsylvania Republican governor candidate Doug Mastriano. Such applications would probably violate federal legislation, and echo legal guidelines from the Jim Crow South that required re-registration yearly to be able to hold Black voters from the polls.

Final September, Marchant additionally informed Reuters that he would look to finish early voting and ban the usage of voting machines till they could possibly be inspected for proof of fraud.

On enterprise coverage

In a major debate in February, Marchant proposed lowering or eliminating the state’s enterprise licensing price. The state’s annual enterprise license price runs $500 for companies and $200 for different companies, although numerous different charges are additionally nonetheless relevant.

Extra just lately, he has extra particularly proposed a “business filing fee holiday” as “the primary of my guarantees to Nevadans.” He additionally has argued in campaign tweets that the submitting course of have to be streamlined and stated that “beginning a enterprise ought to solely take one type.”

Through the Pahrump discussion board, he argued the price vacation ought to final “till we get out of this malaise that we’re having proper now,” and, individually, known as for “much less and fewer burdensome laws on enterprise, identical to President Trump did.”

Marchant has touted his personal enterprise file, highlighting a decades-long profession as a tech enterprise entrepreneur on his marketing campaign web site. Nonetheless, the Las Vegas Evaluate-Journal reported final month that one among Marchant’s companies, a telecommunications firm known as Maxcess, paid out tens of millions of {dollars} in authorized settlements in 2002 and 2003.

Through the major, Marchant additionally often campaigned or tweeted about points unrelated to the workplace of secretary of state, together with calling for a ban on “underage transgender remedy in Nevada,” casting himself as anti-abortion and “pro-life,” calling for the opening of the controversial Thacker Go lithium mine in Humboldt County, and attacking Democrats, specifically Gov. Steve Sisolak and President Joe Biden.

— This story is used with the permission of The Nevada Impartial. Go right here for updates to this and different tales.