Washington D.C. [United States]: A request from the Donald Trump’s campaign to direct a county registrar of voters to preserve and segregate ballots from voting machines in four early voting sites in the Las Vegas area has been denied by a Nevada court judge.
The Trump campaign had claimed that Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria had kept polling locations open for two hours beyond their designated closing times.
According to data from the Nevada secretary of state’s office, Clark County saw its record for single-day early voter turnout shattered Friday when 57,174 people cast their ballots, reports the CNN.
Trump’s lawyers had asked for an order to have the pertinent early vote ballots — those cast after the designated polling hours Friday — not to be “co-mingled or interspersed” with other ballots.
Ruling from the bench, Judge Gloria Sturman, of the District Court for Clark County Nevada said that Joe was already compelled by state law to maintain the records that the Trump campaign is seeking.
Sturman said, “I can’t obligate him to do something he is already obligated to do,” and later adding that “This is Election Day. He has other things to be done.”
A spokesperson for the county, Dan Kulin has said that closing time was not extended for early voting stations and added that they did however, process voters who were in line at closing time to allow as many people to vote as possible.
Sturman angrily shot down a request by the Trump’s campaign seeking information about the people who were present at the sites in dispute.
The judge expressed her frustration with Brian Hardy, a lawyer for the campaign.
Asking that “Do you watch Twitter?” she said, “There are internet trolls who could get this information and harass people who just want to help their fellow citizen’s vote.”
“Why would I order them to make available to you information about people who work at polls when it’s not already a public requirement to do so. So that those people can be harassed for doing their civic duty?”
“I’m just puzzled how you think you will use this evidence anyway,” she added. (ANI)