Politics

Trump Has Already Filed His First Voter Fraud Lawsuit

November 8th 2016

For months, Donald Trump has been pounding a loud drum of allegations that the only way Hillary Clinton can win the election is through voter fraud. Despite the fact that this claim has almost no basis in factual reality hasn't stopped Trump and his surrogates from coming back to it again, and again.

Early on election day, the campaign took it a step further, filing the first of what might be many of lawsuits alleging that county officials conducted business at polling places in a way that was beneficial to the Clinton campaign. In this case, Trump's campaign filed suit in Clark County, Nevada, accusing county registrar Joe Gloria of coordinating with Democratic activists to offer unfair advantages to Latino voters -- specifically, keeping a largely Latino polling place open too late.

The suit alleges that Las Vegas' Cardenas Market, a polling place used almost entirely by Latino voters, was kept open an extra hour in order to let what the Nevada GOP chairman called "a certain group" cast their vote. The polls in Clark County were due to close at 8 p.m., but were kept open until 10 p.m., which allowed everyone already in line to cast their vote -- in keeping with Nevada law that allows such conduct. Trump's suit was seeking to have these votes thrown out under the assumption that they were almost all for Hillary Clinton, and that the time the voters entered the line couldn't be ascertained.

Given the urgency of the matter, the case immediately went before a judge -- and the result was not encouraging for Trump.

The judge tore into the argument of Trump's lawyer, openly wondering why they were there, and telling him he had no cause to file a suit and no entitlement to a decision in his favor. She took particular umbrage with his desire to make public the names of Nevada poll workers, calling out the ceaseless Twitter harassment meted out by Trump supporters against their opponents.

The case was ultimately found to lack merit, and that other administrative remedies hadn't been exhausted.

With the writ denied, the votes from Cardenas Market will be counted.

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