A lawsuit was filed in Nevada in recent days challenging a ballot initiative that would impose new voter ID requirements for residents of the state.
There remains no real-world evidence of systematic election fraud going undetected anywhere in the United States, and an initiative like this voter ID push simply constitutes another round of essentially pointless procedural hurdles with which voters must deal if the measure is enacted. The effort stands to ostensibly solve a problem that doesn’t actually exist. The new Nevada lawsuit seeks a block of the ballot initiative, which is from a group called R.I.S.E. Nevada. The proposed initiative, which could eventually appear on ballots across the state for voters to decide on, “seeks to create a new photo ID requirement for in-person voting, limit acceptable IDs that voters can present to cure a mismatched signature and require the state to provide free photo IDs to voters who don’t have photo IDs that include their signatures,” as the voting rights org Democracy Docket explains.
The initiative was filed after two earlier tries at getting a voter ID initiative on forthcoming Nevada ballots failed. The new case against the third initiative challenges it on the basis of its lack of specifications for how Nevada would fund the plan if enacted. As insisted in the case, which goes over various data indicating the significant costs (from voter education to distributing IDs) associated with any such initiative, the proposed “creation and issuance of a new special photo ID will also come with substantial costs to the state, as confirmed by numerous studies over the last decade.”
Notably, a previous ballot initiative pushed by the same group was blocked on similar grounds of failing to sufficiently outline mechanisms for funding proposed changes. Currently, photo ID isn’t required to cast votes at in-person polling places in Nevada. The state, which Biden won in 2020, was a top target of Trump allies trying to undercut the 2020 presidential election results. At present, the proposed ballot initiative is evidently at the stage of needing signatures from voters, and the case specifically seeks a court block on R.I.S.E. Nevada distributing the proposed initiative for signatures from Nevadans. The lawsuit, from an individual voter, names defendants including the group, its president, and the Nevada Secretary of State, who the plaintiff is hoping to get blocked from transmitting the petition to Nevada’s legislature in the next scheduled legislative session.
