“Lombardo has endorsed three legislators who have in the past endorsed or echoed claims of potential election irregularities”
A new report shows that Joe Lombardo has endorsed multiple election deniers for elected office. Lombardo endorsed Carrie Buck who suggested that “1,500 dead people voted in 2020;” Ken Gray who at a campaign rally in 2022, told a crowd of Trump supporters, “I do believe the election was stolen;” and Jill Dickman who complained of “voter fraud” in a 2020 Facebook post. After vetoing SB133, a bill that would have established felony criminal penalties for fake electors who attempt to steal Nevada’s electoral votes, as six now-indicted Trump supporters did in 2020, Lombardo doubled down on his support for Donald Trump and MAGA extremists by endorsing election deniers and turning a blind eye to Trump’s criminal indictments after saying last year that he could not.
Last weekend, the Nevada GOP held their closed-to-press state convention where Donald Trump endorsed at least two of the six now-indicted fake electors, who attempted to steal the 2020 election, to be Nevada’s 2024 electors. Lombardo’s GOP also re-elected indicted fake elector Jim DeGraffenreid and Sigal Chattah, who said Nevada’s first-ever Black Attorney General should be “hanging from a f*cking crane” to the Republican National Committee.
Read more about Lombardo’s support for election deniers below:
The Nevada Independent: Most Nevada GOP candidates mum on election integrity after ‘Big Lie’ was prominent in 2022
Key points:
- The only non-incumbent endorsed by Lombardo with a public history of spreading election conspiracies is Elko-based former Assemblyman John Ellison, who is running for the open, deep-red Senate District 19 seat. Ellison said in 2021 that the Jan. 6 insurrection was led by the left-wing group Antifa and said the election was stolen from Trump. He did not respond to a request for comment.
- Lombardo has endorsed three legislators who have in the past endorsed or echoed claims of potential election irregularities: Sen. Carrie Buck (R-Henderson), Assemblywoman Jill Dickman (R-Sparks) and Assemblyman Ken Gray (R-Dayton).
- Buck suggested in a 2021 committee hearing that 1,500 dead people voted in 2020, and Dickman complained of “potential election fraud” in a December 2020 Facebook post. Neither responded to requests for comment.
- Trump in his current bid continues to claim the 2020 election was rigged against him, and the Republican National Committee (RNC) said last month that there was “massive fraud” in 2020. The RNC, which is run by more staunchly pro-Trump leaders after recent turnover, has launched election-related lawsuits in half of the swing states, including Nevada, targeting state voter rolls and mail ballot rules.
- The Trump campaign — along with the RNC and Nevada GOP — filed another lawsuit last week arguing that Nevada is violating federal law by allowing any mail ballot postmarked by Election Day to count as long as it is received within four days after Election Day.
USA Today: ‘Terrifying’: Democrats say they have plans to keep electors safe from political violence
Key Points:
- In terms of protecting electors, very little has been accomplished in terms of codifying their safety.
- Democratic officials underscore how even attempts to create guardrails against fake elector schemes have also been thwarted by GOP opponents.
- Nevada Democrats, who control both chambers of the state legislature, for instance, tried that last year when they proposed a bill that would have carried a penalty of up to a decade in prison for those found guilty of signing elector certificates falsely claiming a losing candidate had won.
- Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo said he agreed there “should be strict punishments” for those who “engaged in schemes to present slates of false electors.” But he still blocked the measure, saying the punishments were too severe.
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