The Nevada Supreme Court has rejected Stavros Anthony’s demand for a new election, affirming his loss to Ross Miller in a Clark County Commission race.
Anthony sought a new election saying there were irregularities in the conduct of the election that exceeded Miller’s victory margin. Miller won by 15 votes in a race where 153,169 ballots were cast.
Anthony said state statute provides for a new election when an election is “prevented.”
In an opinion by Chief Justice Jim Hardesty, the high court rejected that argument saying Anthony’s challenge doesn’t warrant a new election under state law, “as nothing prevented the election from occurring or voters from casting their votes in the election.”
Anthony based the challenge on the initial canvass of the election that there were 139 unexplained discrepancies between the number of voters who signed in and the number of votes counted. After the commission certified the election results, Anthony went to district court where his challenge was rejected. He appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court opinion states that the call for a new election applies only when an election is prevented by the loss of ballots or any other cause. It says Anthony reads the language as requiring a new election whenever errors in the conduct of the election may have affected the results. The court ruled that interpretation is unreasonable in the context of Nevada’s election laws because it would give the county commission the power to decide election challenges when the statute specifically gives that power to the district court.
“Because voters had the opportunity to vote in the Nov. 3, 2020, general election and were not prevented from casting their votes for District C, we conclude that the district court properly found that the election was not prevented,” the opinion concludes.
