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Stokke v. Cegavske Opposition To Motion For TRO and PI
Stokke v. Cegavske Opposition To Motion For TRO and PI
1 AARON D. FORD
Attorney General
2 GREGORY L. ZUNINO, Bar No. 4805
Deputy Solicitor General
3 CRAIG A. NEWBY, Bar No. 8591
State of Nevada
4 100 N. Carson Street
Carson City, Nevada 89701-4717
5 (775) 684-1237
[email protected]
6 [email protected]
7 Attorneys for Barbara Cegavske
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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
9 DISTRICT OF NEVADA
19 Defendant Barbara Cegavske in her official capacity as Nevada Secretary of State, by and
20 through counsel of record Gregory L. Zunino, Deputy Solicitor General and Craig A. Newby, Deputy
23 AARON D. FORD
Attorney General
24 By: Craig A. Newby
GREGORY L. ZUNINO, Bar #4805
25 Deputy Solicitor General
CRAIG A. NEWBY, Bar #8591
26 Deputy Solicitor General
Tel: (775) 684-1237
27 [email protected]
[email protected]
28 Attorneys for Defendant Barbara Cegavske, in her
official capacity as Nevada Secretary of State
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Case 2:20-cv-02046-APG-DJA Document 16 Filed 11/06/20 Page 2 of 8
3 made and based upon all matters of record herein, the Memorandum of Points and
4 Authorities submitted herewith, and upon such oral arguments as the court may allow at
7 I. INTRODUCTION
9 state district court and pending before the Nevada Supreme Court, Plaintiffs seek
10 emergency relief from this federal court to stop Clark County’s continued processing and
11 counting of mail ballots. Instead of attempting to surmise how the Nevada Supreme
12 Court would resolve Nevada law, this court should abstain from considering this case.
15 extraordinary remedy never awarded as of right.” Winter v. Natural Res. Def. Council,
16 Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 24 (2008). Here, the Winter factors, specifically Plaintiffs’ unevidenced,
17 unmeritorious legal arguments and the weighing of the public interest and the equities do
21 In their complaint, Plaintiffs Jill Stokke, Chris Prudhome, Marchant for Congress
22 and Rodimer for Congress make unsupported allegations pertaining to Clark County’s
23 conduct of the 2020 election. See Compl. at ¶ 11. 1 In this motion, Plaintiffs make two sets
24 of allegations.
25 First, Plaintiff Stokke alleges that someone else cast her mail vote without her
26 knowledge, a potential felony under Nevada Revised Statute 293.775, when she
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Plaintiffs have not proffered evidence for these allegations and do not merit a
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1 attempted to early vote. 2 The Secretary of State’s Office independently investigated Ms.
2 Stokke’s complaint. Rather than affirm that she had not submitted the mail ballot in
3 writing (effectively challenging the prior vote) to receive a provisional ballot, Ms. Stokke
4 refused because she did not feel she could implicate someone else for a crime. Instead of
5 addressing this allegation on one ballot, Ms. Stokke seeks to stop all continued use of the
6 Agilis machine on an emergency basis for Clark County in its entirety. This is absurd and
8 Second, Plaintiff Prudhome, alleges that he was an observer for the Trump
9 Campaign and a credentialed member of the media at the same time. See Prudhome Decl.
11 from the media. NRS 293.274(3). Further, Nevada statute does not authorize observers or
12 media to take pictures of the ballot counting. Instead, should the county record or
13 photograph ballot counting, a registered voter may submit a request for any such
15 observer and media at the same time, Prudhome alleges that Clark County staff told him
16 “they would be counting for an hour and a half,” but “after just a few minutes, they
17 ordered all of us observers out.” Id. at ¶ 6. He does not allege that the tabulation
18 continued without observers that evening. 4 Based on that unstated and unsupported
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2 Voting twice also violates Nevada statute. See NRS 293.780.
3 Per internet research, Mr. Prudhome is the president of Sunvision Strategies, a
24 firm that works on political and corporate strategies and strategic communications. He
also works to engage millennials and minorities in the voting process and has appeared
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frequently on Fox News Channel. See https://www.foxnews.com/person/p/chris-prudhome
4 Plaintiffs’ counsel makes additional allegations pertaining to Mr. Prudhome
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without specifying how he would have “personal knowledge” of these items. See Mot. at
27 3:11-20. None of these allegations, such as an attempted denial of “entry to the office,”
screens being “all turned off and faced away from him,” or election officials asking “law
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enforcement to remove him from the building,” were attested to by Mr. Prudhome
himself.
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1 the ballot counting process.” Mot. at 8:1-3. Clark County has already agreed to provide
4 injunctive relief premised on this court’s interpretation of Nevada statute. The court
5 should abstain from doing so. Alternatively, Plaintiffs fail to meet their evidentiary
9 Winter v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 24 (2008). Plaintiffs otherwise
10 correctly identify that they “must establish” four factors, including a likelihood of success
11 on the merits.
25 A true and correct copy of the Nevada Supreme Court filing is attached hereto as
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Exhibit A.
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Plaintiffs also contend that there are is no adequate legal remedy. Mot. at 6:18-23.
Not true. Plaintiff Stokke has an adequate remedy at law pertaining to her vote –
27 challenging the purportedly fraudulent valid under Nevada statute. Similarly, Plaintiff
28 Prudhome has additional access to observe vote counting, based on the pending status of
the Nevada state court case.
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1 As addressed in the state court matter, the Agilis machine conducts this initial
2 review, matching signatures approximately 30% of the time. The state district court,
3 following a day-long evidentiary hearing, found “[n]o evidence was presented of any Agilis
4 errors or inaccuracies.” Ex. B at 4:14. “No evidence was presented that there is any
5 indication of any error in Clark County’s Agilis signature match rate.” Id. at 4:14-16. 7
6 One unpursued ballot challenge by Ms. Stokke does not change this determination. The
7 remaining 70% proceed through a detailed human review process that complies with
8 Nevada law and has not been challenged by Plaintiffs in this case.
9 Second, Plaintiffs are unlikely to succeed on their Equal Protection claim. Nevada
10 statute (namely Section 22 of Assembly Bill 4) allows each county clerk to decide whether
11 or how to use “electronic means” to process ballots. This makes perfect sense in Nevada,
12 which has two urban counties and fifteen rural counties, allowing each to determine what
13 works best for their citizens. This constitutes a rational basis for the Nevada Legislature
14 to empower each county to decide whether to use electronic means. Under rational basis
15 review, legislation is presumed to be valid and will be sustained “if there is a rational
17 purpose.” Heller v. Doe, 509 U.S. 312, 320, 113 S.Ct. 2637, 125 L.Ed.2d 257 (1993).
18 Nevada need not “produce evidence to sustain the rationality of a statutory classification,”
19 rather, “[t]he burden is on the one attacking the legislative arrangement to negative every
20 conceivable basis which might support it.” Id. (emphasis added). Assembly Bill 4 clearly
21 complies with rational basis review. Further, as this Court has already concluded, a
22 speculative prospect of voter fraud or vote dilution does not constitute an injury sufficient
23 to confer standing upon a plaintiff or petitioner who alleges a violation of the Equal
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25 7 To be clear, Plaintiffs in the state court case challenged the scan resolution issue
26 also raised by Plaintiffs in this case. Compare Compl. at ¶ 14 (scanning resolution
allegation) with Nevada Supreme Court Emergency Motion (Nov. 3, 2020) at 8 (same), a
27 true and correct copy of which is attached hereto as Exhibit C. Plaintiffs’ counsel in this
case is Petitioners’ counsel in the state court case. Finally, the state court determined at
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the evidentiary hearing that one of Petitioners’ attorneys knew Clark County intended to
use the Agilis machine in advance of the general election. Ex. B at 4:5-6.
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1 Protection Clause. See Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., 2020 WL 5626974 at * 7;
4 alleged by Plaintiff Prudhome, at most, he was denied less than 90 minutes of access to
5 ballot counting. Further access has been supplied by Clark County in accordance with the
9 The other Winters factors favor denial of injunctive relief in this case. First,
10 Plaintiffs’ consideration of the relative harms relies completely on the assumption that
11 Defendants are not complying with Nevada statute. Mot. at 7:1-4. The lack of merits has
15 hearing, the court found “that if Clark County is not allowed to continue using Agilis the
16 county will not meet the canvass deadline.” Ex. B at 4:17-20. Further, Section 23(4) of
18 proposed delay effectively eliminates voters’ ability to cure any potential issues with their
21 Plaintiffs offer no evidence outside of one voter who refuses to challenger what she
22 contends was her fraudulent ballot. Voting is at the heart of Nevada’s government and
23 evidence, rather than unsupported assertions, should be required to stop the counting of
25 …
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1 V. CONCLUSION
5 AARON D. FORD
Attorney General
6
By: Craig A. Newby
7 GREGORY L. ZUNINO, Bar #4805
Deputy Solicitor General
8 CRAIG A. NEWBY, Bar #8591
Deputy Solicitor General
9 State of Nevada
Nevada State Attorney General
10 100 N. Carson Street
Carson City, Nevada 89701
11 Tel: (775) 684-1237
[email protected]
12 [email protected]
13 Attorneys for Defendant Barbara Cegavske, in her
official capacity as Nevada Secretary of State
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1 CERTIFICATE OF MAILING
2 I certify that I am an employee of the Office of the Attorney General, State of
3 Nevada, and that on this 6th day of November, 2020, I filed with this Court’s CM/ECF
5 AND PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION, parties associated with this case will be served
6 by this Court’s electronic notification system.
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9 An employee of the Office
of the Attorney General
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