June 8, 2022
Contact: Cory Combs, Senior Communications Manager
ccombs@issueoneaction.org, p: 202-204-8553
Nevada Secretary of State Candidate Jim Marchant is a “dangerous extremist” says Issue One Action CEO Nick Penniman
Washington, DC – June 8, 2022 – A dangerous election denier could emerge next Tuesday as the Republican Party’s nominee in Nevada’s secretary of state race, where GOP voters are choosing a replacement for term-limited incumbent Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske.
After the 2020 election, Cegavske weathered criticism from supporters of former President Donald Trump — who lost Nevada by 2.4%, or roughly 33,600 votes — for refusing, as she has said, to “put my thumb on the scale of democracy.”
Jim Marchant — the former state assemblyman who is a top contender to win the GOP nomination for secretary of state — has said that he would not have certified President Joe Biden's victory in Nevada in 2020 had he been secretary of state at the time. Marchant has also expressed openness to sending an alternative slate of electors to Congress that would not support the winner of the popular vote in Nevada in 2024.
“Elections should be run by devoted public servants who want to administer free and fair elections, not rogue partisan activists who would overturn the will of the people,” said Issue One Action CEO Nick Penniman.
Penniman continued: “People who do not believe in free and fair elections are unfit for elected office in the United States — especially for the position of secretary of state. Because they frequently oversee our elections, secretary of state candidates must demonstrate a commitment to the democratic process. Former assemblyman Marchant’s rhetoric and record make it clear that he’s a dangerous extremist who would work to undermine democratic elections.”
Election deniers are running to be the next secretary of state in several states this year. They have already been defeated at the ballot box in Republican primaries in Ohio, Nebraska, Idaho, and Georgia.
Jim Marchant’s record as an election denier
On his campaign website, former state assemblyman Jim Marchant refers to himself as a “victim of election fraud,” and he has falsely claimed the 2020 election was “stolen” from both him and Trump. Marchant unsuccessfully brought legal challenges alleging voter fraud after he lost a congressional race in 2020 by roughly 16,000 votes.
Marchant has said that he would not have certified Biden's victory in Nevada in 2020 had he been secretary of state at the time. He has also expressed openness to sending an alternative slate of electors to Congress that would not support the winner of the popular vote in Nevada in 2024.
After the 2020 election, Marchant was supportive of the efforts by Republican electors in Nevada who falsely certified Trump as the winner of the state’s presidential election. Had Trump carried Nevada, these electors would have represented Nevada’s popular vote in the Electoral College. Despite Trump’s loss, they submitted their votes anyway in hopes that Republicans in Congress would count them instead of the legitimate electors who backed Biden’s win.
Marchant additionally helped form a pro-Trump “coalition of America First secretary of state candidates” whose members share a belief in election conspiracy theories. Marchant announced the existence of this coalition in October 2021 at a conference held in Las Vegas by QAnon conspiracy theorists.
If elected, Marchant has pledged to remove Nevada from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), the nation’s preeminent nonprofit coordinating with states across the country for the express purpose of keeping voting rolls clean and accurate. Experts say that withdrawing from ERIC would disadvantage both Nevada as well as the other 30 states that participate in the program. When fewer states participate in ERIC, there are fewer data sets for participating states to review for people who have moved out or died, making it more difficult for both participating and non-participating states to keep their voter rolls accurately updated.
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