Citizen Outreach Foundation v. Burgess

Shortly before the November 2024 presidential election, a third-party organization has challenged the eligibility of about 38,000 voters across the state of Nevada on the basis of purportedly improper residency. About 31,000 of these challenges are for voters in Clark and Washoe counties, which contain the cities of Las Vegas and Reno, respectively. The challenger’s sole “evidence” for the purported improper residency comes exclusively from the National Change of Address (“NCOA”) database, which provides an overinclusive and otherwise inaccurate list for this purpose. The Nevada Secretary of State has already distributed a guidance to county clerks stating that challenges relying on NCOA database matches are not based on “personal knowledge” and are thus procedurally invalid under Nevada law; the United States Department of Justice has recently put out a guidance expressing similar statements about federal law.

After Washoe County correctly declined to process the 11,000-some challenges in its county because they are legally deficient, the challengers filed a petition for a writ of mandamus to compel Washoe to do so. An initial investigation has revealed that several ACLU of Nevada members are on the list of voters challenged in Washoe County. If these challenges are processed, voters may be put on inactive status, which would prevent them from voting absentee, or even potentially removed from the voter rolls altogether, fully disenfranchising them for the November 2024 election. The ACLU Voting Rights Project and the ACLU of Nevada have moved to intervene in the case to protect their members and thousands of other Washoe County voters from disenfranchisement and to protect their right to vote in the November 2024 presidential election.