Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025 | 2 a.m.
A proposal being considered in the Nevada Legislature that calls for election workers to be charged with a felony for failing to perform tasks in a timely manner has received pushback from those staffers tasked with running elections.
Senate Bill 100 comes from state Sen. Skip Daly, a Washoe County Democrat, who told the Sun he was working with counties and city clerks to answer concerns they expressed during a hearing late Tuesday for the proposal.
The feedback, he says, could be used in retooling the bill.
“They weren’t really coming in and saying, ‘This is 100% horrible, and it’s just a power grab’ and all that stuff,” Daly told the Sun. “They’re saying, ‘Hey, if you’re going to do this, these are our concerns, and can we clear some of those issues up?’ So, we want to work with them on that bill.”
Nevada law mandates that any officer or other person tasked with election responsibilities who “willfully neglects” their duty or “willfully performs” it in a way that works against state laws is guilty of a category E felony and eligible for one to four years in prison.
Daly’s legislation would expand that definition and make it so that a person with election responsibilities who fails to perform their tasks “in a timely manner by the applicable deadline” is also eligible for a felony charge.
Daly called his legislation “an accountability measure,” inspired by two instances in Washoe County where he said the county was at risk of not timely processing the necessary steps to complete the 2024 election.
He said Washoe barely met the deadline to hire a printing company to produce the sample ballots. He also referenced an incident following the June primary, in which three Republicans on the Washoe County Commission refused to canvass the recount of two vote totals, which led to Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar and Attorney General Aaron Ford filing a petition with the Nevada Supreme Court in July.
“If they just don’t want to do it because they don’t agree, that’s when you need to have fail-safe and accountability that the state law as enacted by the Legislature is going to be carried out in a timely fashion,” Daly said. “And if you don’t have that, then you really don’t have any accountability to the laws that are passed.”
Washoe County holds a neutral position on the proposal, said George Guthrie, a media production specialist for the Washoe County registrar of voters. The county didn’t miss deadlines during the 2024 election, he said.
The proposal calls for county or city election officials to notify the secretary of state and attorney general if they cannot perform their obligation by mandated deadlines.
The bill would allow for the individual to be relieved from their duties if the secretary of state chooses to petition the district court.
Daly said it’s not about removing a person from office but relieving someone from specific duties if they are intentionally delaying or hindering processes.
“If somebody needs help, they should ask for it. If they don’t want to ask for it, and don’t send in the notice, that’s going to be the red flag,” Daly said. “And the secretary of state’s going to come and say, ‘What’s going on, you haven’t notified me if you’re on track, are you or are you not?’ ”
The bill was presented Tuesday evening before the Senate Legislative Operations and Elections Committee, with several speaking out in opposition, including representatives from Clark County, Las Vegas and a city clerk for North Las Vegas. No vote was taken.
“There are so many timelines that exist of what we need to do,” Ashley Kennedy, an analyst in government affairs for Clark County, said during testimony. “And so I think, from our position, we want clear parameters on what constitutes not performing your job timely, especially if it risks our registrar being subject to a felony or the option for a state official to remove a county employee from doing their job.”
Doug Goodman, founder and executive director of Nevadans for Election Reform, said in testimony that the Washoe County incidents were an “embarrassment,” made even more serious by the election worker turnover in the county. Cari-Ann Burgess, then-Washoe County interim registrar of voters, claims she was forced out of her job weeks before November’s presidential election.
“We are in a time when election administration is critical, and so I think this bill brought by Sen. Daly is critical,” Goodman said. “I think it will provide the fail-safe that he mentions.”
The Nevada Republican Party opposes the proposal. It is urging members to speak out against the bill with letters to lawmakers.
“Whether it’s clerks or commissioners, the voters should have the ultimate authority over whether they continue to do their jobs. (It) shouldn’t come down to the secretary of state or the court system to necessarily remove them from their positions,” Jim DeGraffenreid, Nevada state Republican national committeeman, said in testimony. “In general, I know our clerks do an excellent job throughout the state, our clerks and registrars.”
Outlawing ‘false electors’
The Senate Legislative Operations and Elections Committee also heard the reintroduction of Daly’s “false electors” bill, which passed in 2023 but was vetoed by Gov. Joe Lombardo.
The legislation, now Senate Bill 102, would criminalize the act of submitting certain election documents with the intent to defraud or serve in a slate of false presidential electors. It would prohibit state or local government from appointing a person convicted with this offense into public office.
The bill was inspired after the 2020 presidential election when loyalists to President Donald Trump conducted a fake ceremony in Carson City to sign a document “certifying” Nevada’s six electoral votes for Trump — even though Joe Biden won the state by about 30,000 votes.
They mailed the document to the National Archives in Washington. Ford is still pursuing charges.
Daly said the newer version of the proposal included the possibility of probation and allows for a person convicted of this crime to still serve in state or local government if it isn’t an appointed role.
“I don’t think the compromises watered it down. I felt strongly last session that those were egregious actions that they took, and they needed to have a strict or severe penalty,” Daly said. “Did it have to be four to 10, non-probationable? I felt yes, and still think yes, but not everybody agreed.”
Kerry Durmick, Nevada state director for advocacy group All Voting is Local Action, spoke in support of the bill.
“SB 102 would establish clear, legal guardrails and consequences for individuals engaging in such actions in future presidential elections,” Durmick said. “This legislation strengthens election safeguards and reinforces accountability in our electoral process.”
Barney Wadley, a Lyon County resident speaking on behalf of the state GOP, opposed the bill.
“Situations can arise where a different winner is determined between the Electoral College vote in December and the counting of the votes in January,” Wadley said before the committee. “This is not a partisan issue.”
Daly said although he made changes, like less severe penalties, to the legislation from the 2023 session, he accepts that there are some people he will not be able to bring on board.
“Some people are incalcitrant in their positions. You can’t talk to them. They won’t listen to reason,” Daly said. “They won’t believe anything that doesn’t align with their point of view or their version that they want to be reality, whether it’s reality or not.”
The committee took no immediate action on the bill.
