CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - Nevada’s six Democratic presidential electors awarded their votes to Joe Biden on Monday morning, becoming the first slate of electors from a battleground state to cast their votes.
The ceremony, which took place over Zoom due to the coronavirus pandemic, took less than 20 minutes and finished without any surprises.
Electors signed pledges to vote for the presidential and vice presidential candidates who received the most votes in the state, as required under Nevada’s faithful electors law, and then filled out seven copies of their votes for state and federal records.
Biden defeated Trump by 33,596 votes, or 2.4 percentage points, in Nevada.
While Democrats’ margin of victory was similar to the 2016 election, the state’s slow vote-counting pace and a result that appeared tight on Election Night catapulted the western battleground into the national spotlight.
Trump eyed the state as a pick-up opportunity, visiting three times in the lead-up to the election. Biden visited once for an event with Latino groups and a drive-in rally.
Both before and after Election Day, the Nevada contest was challenged in several lawsuits. They alleged irregularities in the vote-counting process in blue-leaning Clark County and disputed the constitutionality of the Legislature’s August decision to send all active voters mail-in ballots to ensure that voters worried about the pandemic could participate.
Despite the fact that the lawsuits have all been unsuccessful to this point, Nevada’s Republican electors convened in Carson City at noon to re-enact the Electoral College ceremony and symbolically cast Nevada’s six votes for President Donald Trump.
The Republicans said they plan to send the certifications from the re-enactment to Washington, D.C.
Flanked by men in camouflage with semi-automatic rifles, the Republicans claimed outdated voter rolls and potential fraud made possible by mail-in ballots compromised the election.
Without evidence suggesting the supposedly ineligible voters cast ballots for Biden, the Republicans declared Trump Nevada’s real winner.
“I think we all know who won this election,” Jim DeGraffenreid told a cheering audience of about 50 Trump supporters, who carried “Stop the Steal” signs and thin blue line American flags.
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Metz is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
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