Parler Says It Informed FBI Over 50 Times About Violent Content Before US Capitol Breach

The Parler social media website is displayed on a cell phone in New York City on March 5, 2021. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Social media platform Parler said it had referred violent content from its platform to the FBI ahead of the breach at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Parler made the disclosure in a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, in response to the panel’s request for documents. The company said that it had referred “violent content and incitement” from its platform to the FBI over 50 times before Jan. 6. It also warned the bureau about “specific threats of violence being planned” about the Jan. 6 incident.

“Parler now writes to set the record straight and provide new information about the positive role Parler played in the days and weeks leading up to January 6th, which should finally put an end to the spurious allegations against the Company,” the letter, penned by Parler’s attorney Michael S. Dry, stated.

The information is the latest in an ongoing feud between Parler and big tech companies that had sought to terminate the platform’s operation following the Jan. 6 incident. Apple and Google removed Parler from its app stores, while Amazon removed the platform from its web hosting service. All three companies took issue with the company’s alleged lax approach to violent content posted by its users and “repeated violations” of their terms of service related to such violent content.

Parler has denied the allegations and argued that the big tech companies had colluded against it as it had not taken action against competitors like Twitter and Facebook, which had similar content on their platforms regarding Jan. 6. Parler has also sued Amazon for a breach of contract, defamation, and anticompetitive behavior.

“There is no truth to the absurd conspiracy theories that have been put forth by Big Tech and its media allies to unfairly malign the company and which were referenced in the Committee’s Letter,” Parler said, according to the letter. “Contrary to what has been reported, and as explained in more detail below: the company is and always has been American-owned and controlled; Parler has never engaged in any collusion with ‘the Russians’; and Parler never offered President Donald J. Trump an ownership interest in the company.”

In its letter, Parler said that the company recognizes “legal limits to free speech” and that its policies “have always prohibited threats of violence and incitement on its platform.” It said that it had developed a “strong working relationship with the FBI” to foster cooperation with law enforcement, and ensure that unlawful incitement and violent threats were reported in a timely manner.

The company added that it had formalized its working relationship with the FBI in November 2020 and began to regularly forwarding screenshots of unlawful posts that called for violence or merited additional investigation for public safety. Such posts include users threatening to kill politicians and former Attorney General Bill Barr.

Parler said it had also alerted the FBI in December to content about specific threats of organized violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

The company also sought to underscore the alleged unbalanced scrutiny of the platform, arguing that, out of 270 Justice Department charging documents it had perused, 80 percent of social media references related to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, while only 5 percent mentioned Parler.

The letter also denied other accusations that had been lodged against the platform, including alleged collusion with Russian businesses and alleged discussion with former President Donald Trump aides to offer the former president an ownership interest in the company.

“This is also false,” the letter states. “Based on our review of documents and interviews of relevant individuals, we have identified no evidence that Parler ever negotiated with anyone to provide former President Donald Trump with a personal ownership interest in the company.”

Parler went under leadership restructuring following its dispute with big tech. Former Parler CEO John Matze, who co-founded the company, said he was fired following a dispute with one of Parler’s investors, Rebekah Mercer, over content moderation. Matze said this week that he has filed a lawsuit against the company.

Source: Parler Says It Informed FBI Over 50 Times About Violent Content Before US Capitol Breach

Supreme Court Rejects Facebook Appeal in $15 Billion Lawsuit

The Facebook logo is displayed on their website in Bordeaux, France, on Feb. 1, 2017. (Regis Duvignau/Reuters)

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from Facebook that requested the court intervene in a $15 billion class-action lawsuit alleging the firm illegally tracked the online activities of its users when they are not on the platform, thereby violating the federal Wiretap Act law.

“Facebook’s user profiles would allegedly reveal an individual’s likes, dislikes, interests, and habits over a significant amount of time, without affording users a meaningful opportunity to control or prevent the unauthorized exploration of their private lives,” the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a ruling (pdf) last year, saying that Facebook users suffered a clear invasion of privacy.

https://www.scribd.com/document/499838180/In-Re-Perrin-Davis-Et-Al-v-Facebook-Inc-17-17486-No-85-9th-Cir-Apr-9-2020

The “Plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged a clear invasion of the historically recognized right to privacy,” the court ruled at the time. “Therefore, Plaintiffs have standing to pursue their privacy claims under the Wiretap Act, [the Stored Communications Act], and [the Children’s Internet Protection Act], as well as their claims for breach of contract and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.”

On Monday, the Supreme Court denied Facebook’s appeal, meaning the suit can go forward.

The lawsuit alleged that the Menlo Park, California-based tech giant had secretly tracked users’ visits to websites that use Facebook’s features such as the “like” or “share” buttons, even if the users did not click on either of the two buttons.

The litigation also accuses the company of violating the privacy rights of its users under California law, but Facebook’s appeal to the Supreme Court involved only the Wiretap Act. The 1968 law has also been invoked in lawsuits against Google and Microsoft.

Four individuals filed the proposed lawsuit in California federal court seeking $15 billion in damages for Facebook’s actions between April 2010 and September 2011. The company stopped its nonconsensual tracking after it was exposed by a researcher in 2011, court papers said. They further argued that Facebook unjustly collected the data and sold it to advertisers for a profit.

Facebook, in response, said it maintained privacy standards and should not be penalized for communications that users partake in, saying that the data was collected to show users better content and more targeted ads on its platform. It has further said the data was not collected in an unfair manner.

“Facebook was not an uninvited interloper to a communication between two separate parties; it was a direct participant,” the company said in a legal filing.

Facebook now discloses that it collects data when people visit websites with the firm’s plug-ins. It reached a settlement over its practices with the Federal Trade Commission about a decade ago.

The case is Facebook v. Davis, 20-727.

Source: Supreme Court Rejects Facebook Appeal in $15 Billion Lawsuit

Media Company Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google, Facebook

The logos of mobile apps Facebook and Google on a smartphone in Sydney, Australia, on Dec. 9, 2020 (The Epoch Times)

A media company that operates several West Virginia newspapers is suing Google and Facebook for threatening the extinction of local newspapers across the country by their alleged anticompetitive business practices.

HD Media Company this week filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to determine whether the two Silicon Valley companies had violated anti-trust laws. The lawsuit claims Google had unlawfully exercised monopoly power of the digital advertising market, which has prevented newspapers from competing in the market and losing their primary source of revenue.

It also claims that Google and Facebook had “unlawfully conspired to engage in anticompetitive conduct,” through an alleged secret deal nicknamed “Jedi Blue.” Details of the alleged agreement were first revealed when 10 state attorneys general sued Google for multiple violations of federal and state antitrust and consumer protection laws.

According to a redacted version of the lawsuit (pdf) filed in December, Facebook announced in 2017 that it would try a new method of selling online advertising called “header bidding,” which would act as a threat of competition for Google. The lawsuit suggested Facebook eventually “curtailed its involvement” with the project after Google gave Facebook “information, speed, and other advantages in the [redacted] auctions that Google runs for publishers’ mobile app advertising inventory each month in the United States.”

The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, who both say they’ve reviewed an unredacted version of the complaint, reported the alleged secret deal referred to in the lawsuit was code-named “Jedi Blue” by Google.

HD Media’s lawsuit claims that as a result of Google and Facebook’s alleged anticompetitive and monopolistic practices, newspapers in West Virginia and across the country are facing “a very real existential threat to their existence.”

“Without redress, these newspapers, and hence the citizens of West Virginia, may well end up in the ‘news desert,’” the lawsuit states (pdf).

It claims that Google’s monopoly has created an uneven playing field to compete for online advertising revenue. It says Google had integrated itself through numerous mergers and acquisitions to “enable dominion over all sellers, buyers, and middlemen in the marketplace.”

“The freedom of the press is not at stake; the press itself is at stake,” the filing states.

“As a result of falling revenues, newspapers are steadily losing the ability to financially support their newsrooms, which are costly to maintain but provide immense value to their communities. A robust local newsroom requires the financial freedom to support in-depth, sometimes years-long reporting, as well as the ability to hire and retain journalists with expertise in fundamentally local issues, such as coverage of state government.”

Google and Facebook did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.

HD media is seeking an order that declares Google and Facebook’s actions violated the law and blocks them from further engaging in such conduct. It also seeks damages for any injury caused.

HD media owns and operates newspapers such as The Herald-Dispatch in Huntington and Cabell County, the Charleston Gazette-Mail, The Wayne County News, The Putnam Herald, the Williamson Daily News, The Logan Banner, the Coal Valley News in Boone County, and The Independent Herald in Pineville.

Source: Media Company Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google, Facebook

Parler CEO ‘Confident’ Platform Will Return by End of January

Parler co-founder and CEO John Matze in Washington on June 11, 2019. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

De-platformed social media website Parler may return by the end of January, coming after the site reappeared online after Amazon Web Services (AWS) took the site down due to alleged violations, according to Parler CEO John Matze.

“I’m confident that by the end of the month, we’ll be back up,” Matze told Fox News on Sunday night. The website reappeared online with a brief statement from Matze.

According to a WHOIS search, Parler appeared to register its domain with Epik web hosting, which also hosts Gab.

“Every day it changes wildly, but I feel confident now,” Matze said, according to the Fox News interview. “We’re making significant progress. When you go into Parler.com it doesn’t go into the void now, it hits a server, and it returns just one piece of information.”

Matze wrote in an update on the site that “now seems like the right time to remind you all—both lovers and haters—why we started this platform.”

“We believe privacy is paramount and free speech essential, especially on social media,” he remarked in his statement, dated Jan. 16. “Our aim has always been to provide a nonpartisan public square where individuals can enjoy and exercise their rights to both. We will resolve any challenge before us and plan to welcome all of you back soon. We will not let civil discourse perish!”

parler screenshot
A screenshot of Parler.com on Jan. 16, 2020. (Screenshot/Parler)

Matze told the broadcaster that he was able to recover Parler’s data from Amazon on Friday, Jan. 15, which is a key step in relaunching the platform. “Now we can actually rebuild Parler,” Matze explained. “It’s critically important.”

On Jan. 11, Parler filed a lawsuit against Amazon Web Services, saying that the firm should reinstate its services while saying Amazon engaged in monopolistic practices. Amazon, in a responding court filing, said Parler violated its terms and services by not moderating threats of violence and other allegedly egregious content, although Parler has since claimed a representative with Amazon appeared to be only concerned about whether President Donald Trump joined the social media website after Twitter and other big tech companies banned his accounts.

The Epoch Times reached out to AWS for comment on Sunday.

Matze added to Fox on Sunday that posting his brief message was a “big milestone” in getting the platform back online.

“We’re going to be putting periodic updates there,” Matze said “We’re going to try to get an update out every day… so that people can stay up to date with the site.”

Other than Amazon, Google and Apple removed Parler’s app from the firms’ respective app programs.

The move to suspend both Parler and Trump from various big tech services drew condemnation from civil liberties groups and conservatives, who have argued that it represents a slippery slope into more censorship.

Parler, which describes itself as a “free speech” social media website, drew a number of Trump supporters and other conservatives, including senators and House representatives. Following Trump’s Twitter ban, the website became the No. 1 app on various app stores before it was taken down.

Source: Parler CEO ‘Confident’ Platform Will Return by End of January

Power of Vice President to Count or Reject Electoral Votes Disputed

News Analysis

At 1 p.m. local time on Jan. 6, members of Congress will gather in the chamber of the House of Representatives to observe the formal certification of Electoral College votes for president of the United States.

While it’s usually a formality, nothing has been usual so far about this year’s election amid numerous allegations of voter fraud in key swing states.

The situation is complicated by a lack of clarity on the legal and constitutional guardrails for the process. The joint session of Congress may well result in gridlock, in which a clear winner of the race isn’t announced at all.

Based on current election results, former Vice President Joe Biden has received 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232 votes. Meanwhile, Republicans in seven states where Biden claimed victory have sent their own sets of electoral votes to Washington, and some members of the House have indicated that they will object to Biden electors in some states. Any objection would require support from one House member and one senator to be considered, and at least one senator has has left open the possibility he would join the effort.

So what will happen?

The counting of votes is primarily governed by the 12th Amendment of the Constitution and the amended Electoral Count Act.

The Constitution simply states that electors of each state have to meet, make a list of their votes, “which they shall sign and certify,” and send those to the president of the Senate, meaning Vice President Mike Pence.

“The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted,” the 1804 amendment says.

The Electoral Count Act of 1887, currently known as 3 U.S. Code Section 15, establishes a procedure for how the votes are counted, how to raise objections, and how to resolve disputes. First, it says that the vice president indeed presides over the proceedings. Then, it says the House and Senate leaders each designate two tellers. The VP opens the envelopes with the vote certificates and hands them to the tellers for counting. The tellers then read them out loud, count them, and hand them back to the VP to announce the results.

Then, in rather convoluted language, the law says that Congress members can object. At least one objection from each chamber is needed to trigger a separate vote by both House and Senate on the objections. If both chambers agree, the objected voters are rejected. That’s virtually out of the question given the Democrats’ majority in the House.

If two sets of electors are presented for counting, the House and Senate need to separately vote on which set is legitimate and which should be rejected. If each chamber votes differently, the set certified by the state’s governor should count. That would hand the victory to Biden.

The problem is, there’s a voluminous body of legal analysis arguing that the Electoral Count Act is unconstitutional. Congress has no business granting itself the authority to decide which slate of electors is the correct one and which votes should be rejected. Nor does Congress have the power to designate state governors as the final arbiters, a lineup of legislators and legal scholars have argued.

There are two arguments for who has the constitutional power to decide which electors to choose.

Some jurists say it’s the VP who has the sole discretion to decide which votes to count. The argument is that the framers intended for the VP to be the sole authority over the counting of the votes because the unanimous resolution attached to the Constitution said that the Senate should appoint its President “for the sole Purpose of receiving, opening, and counting the Votes for President.”

Moreover, before the adoption of the Electoral Count Act, it was always the VP counting the votes, sometimes despite major objections from Congress. Thomas Jefferson did so as the VP in the 1800 election, counting Georgia’s constitutionally deficient votes and de facto securing his own presidency.

Arizona state lawmakers and GOP electors, together with Rep. Louie Gohmert, have filed a federal suit asking for the court to clarify the law to the effect that the Electoral Count Act is unconstitutional and the VP’s power is paramount.

Not everybody agrees, though.

University of Virginia professsor John Harrison, an expert on constitutional history, says the VP doesn’t have “any constitutional power to make decisions” over which votes to count.

He argued that the law is deficient to the effect that “Congress doesn’t have the power to make the announcement [of its decisions regarding the vote count] conclusive.” But that doesn’t mean it can’t prescribe any rules at all.

“The Constitution does call for counting the votes with both houses present, so I think that setting up procedures for a count is within Congress’s power,” he told The Epoch Times via email.

The second argument is that the Constitution grants the authority to determine how electors are picked to state legislatures. As such, any disputes over which votes should be counted should be resolved by state legislatures.

The problem is, state legislatures aren’t in session and they can’t assemble in a special session without a call from the governors, who have refused to do so. Meanwhile, the legislatures have usually delegated the power to certify electors to the Governors and Secretaries of State, undermining their own authority on the matter.

The conservative Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society has filed a federal lawsuit arguing that the power of the legislatures is both “exclusive and non-delegable,” and thus any state and federal statutes to the contrary are unconstitutional and void.

That would not only knock down some provisions of the Electoral Count Act, but also render electoral votes that haven’t been certified post-election by state legislatures illegitimate.

Regardless of what the courts will say, the core question is what will take place in the House chambers on Jan. 6? Will Pence refuse to follow the Electoral Count Act? Will some of the tellers dissent? If things go wrong for the Democrats, will House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) try to end the session prematurely?

There’s no way to tell. Pence hasn’t let his intentions be known.

Source: Power of Vice President to Count or Reject Electoral Votes Disputed

Peter Navarro Issues Report on Voting Irregularities: ‘The Emperor, In the Election, Has No Clothes’

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro listens to a news conference about a presidential executive order relating to military veterans outside of the West Wing of the White House in Washington, March 4, 2019. (Leah Millis/Reuters)

Peter Navarro, who serves as an advisor to President Donald Trump, on Thursday released a report, in his private capacity, on the integrity of the 2020 election, concluding that the allegations of irregularities are serious enough to warrant an urgent probe and substantial enough to overturn the results.

The findings of the report (pdf), titled “The Immaculate Deception,” support the claim that the election “may well have been stolen” from President Donald Trump.

“If these election irregularities are not fully investigated prior to Inauguration Day and thereby effectively allowed to stand, this nation runs the very real risk of never being able to have a fair presidential election again,” Navarro said in the report.

On a call with reporters explaining his findings, Navarro said his role in putting the report together is to say that, “the emperor, in the election, has no clothes.”

Fielding questions about what, at this stage, can be done, given that numerous legal challenges brought by the Trump campaign have been dismissed and the Electoral College has already voted, Navarro said, “with every day that goes by, it becomes more complicated” and “options narrow.”

Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis, in a recent interview with The Epoch Times, said there’s still time for state legislatures to convene in special sessions and authorize alternate slates of electors.

While Navarro declined to specify a proposed remedy in light of his findings aside from a thorough investigation, he said, “the last thing this country needs is an Inauguration Day where we have what is perceived to be an illegal and illegitimate president of the United States.”

In making an urgent call for a probe of the allegations, Navarro argued that “if, in fact, compelling evidence comes to light proving the election was indeed stolen after a fait accompli Biden inauguration, we as a country run the very real risk that the very center of our great American union will not hold.”

In the report, Navarro examines six types of irregularities in the six battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—states in which certified results show Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s holding a lead and where the vote continues to be hotly contested.

Epoch Times Photo
Summary of findings regarding election irregularities in six battleground states. (Source: Data – The Immaculate Deception Report; Design – ET)

Navarro said that the pattern of irregularities across the six states suggests “a coordinated strategy to, if not steal the election outright, strategically game the election process in such a way as to ‘stuff the ballot box’ and unfairly tilt the playing field in favor of the Biden-Harris ticket.”

He argues that the weight of the evidence, which comes from sources that include over 50 lawsuits and judicial rulings, thousands of affidavits and declarations, testimony in a variety of settings, think tank analyses, and press reports, is “more than sufficient to swing the outcome in favor of President Trump.”

Biden’s margin of victory in all the battleground states except Michigan is less than the number of ballots that Navarro flags as possibly illegal.

Rather than any single “silver bullet” of election irregularity responsible for an unfavorable outcome for Trump, Navarro argues that “this was theft by a thousand cuts across six dimensions and six battleground states.”

Outright Voter Fraud

The list of actions that Navarro classifies as outright voter fraud include large-scale manufacturing of fake ballots, bribery, along with ballots cast by dead voters or ineligible voters like felons and illegal aliens. Others include ballots counted multiple times and those cast by illegal, out-of state voters.

Epoch Times Photo
Summary of findings regarding outright voter fraud in six battleground states. (Source: Data – The Immaculate Deception Report; Design – ET)

Ballot Mishandling

Another major dimension of alleged irregularities in the 2020 presidential election, which Navarro calls a “multifaceted problem” that featured in five out of six of the battleground states, includes such factors as no voter ID checks, signature match check abuses, “naked ballots” that lack an outer envelope, and broken chain-of-custody records.

Epoch Times Photo
Summary of findings regarding ballot mishandling in six battleground states. (Source: Data – The Immaculate Deception Report; Design – ET)

Contestable Process Fouls

The third dimension of election irregularities includes abuses regarding poll watchers and observers, such as denial of access or lack of meaningful access, as well as violations of state law in the area of mail-in and absentee ballots. It also includes illegal ballot curing by poll workers, and violations in voter registration procedures.

Epoch Times Photo
Summary of findings regarding contestable process fouls in six battleground states. (Source: Data – The Immaculate Deception Report; Design – ET)

Equal Protection Clause Violations

The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution features the Equal Protection Clause, which mandates that no state may deny its citizens equal protection under the law. Questionable practices in this regard identified by Navarro include applying higher standards of certification and ID verification applied to in-person voters compared to mail-in and absentee balloting, and different standards of ballot curing for different counties.

Epoch Times Photo
Summary of findings regarding equal protection clause issues in six battleground states. (Source: Data – The Immaculate Deception Report; Design – ET)

Voting Machine Irregularities

There were two major types of voting machine irregularities Navarro noted in the report: large-scale voting machine inaccuracies, as well as vote switching from one candidate to another and vote surges in favor of one candidate.

voting machine irrelugalities 2
Summary of findings regarding voting machine irregularities in six battleground states. (Source: Data – The Immaculate Deception Report; Design – ET)

Significant Statistical Anomalies

The final category of irregularities detailed in Navarro’s report are statistical anomalies, which include such phenomena as significant changes in absentee ballot rejection rates compared to prior elections, and unusual vote surges.

Epoch Times Photo
Summary of findings regarding statistical anomalies in six battleground states. (Source: Data – The Immaculate Deception Report; Design – ET)

In concluding his report, Navarro argues that “the failure to aggressively and fully investigate” the irregularities he has flagged “signal a failure not just of our anti-Trump mainstream media and censoring social media but also of both our legislative and judicial branches.”

Since Election Day, Trump and third-party groups have pursued legal challenges to the outcome of the election in the six battleground states. None of the efforts have so far borne fruit, including an interstate Supreme Court challenge brought by Texas and backed by 19 Republican attorneys general.

Source: Peter Navarro Issues Report on Voting Irregularities: ‘The Emperor, In the Election, Has No Clothes’

 

GOP campaigns, voter file lawsuit alleging improper votes in Nevada

GOP campaigns, voter file lawsuit alleging improper votes in Nevada

The original article on LV Review-Journal is currently being blocked from sharing on Facebook.  

Two Republican congressional campaigns and a Nevada voter filed a federal lawsuit Thursday night against Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske and Clark County Registrar Joe Gloria, asking the court to stop the use of Clark County’s electronic mail ballot counting machine and making a variety of fraud accusations.

Although President Donald Trump’s campaign and the Nevada Republican Party are not listed as plaintiffs, they held a news conference Thursday morning promising the lawsuit, an event that featured the named plaintiff, Las Vegas resident Jill Stokke.

The campaigns of Dan Rodimer and Jim Marchant, who are challenging Reps. Susie Lee and Steven Horsford, respectively, are two of the other listed plaintiffs.

Their lawsuit alleged “3,000 instances of ineligible individuals casting ballots” in Clark County, including ballots from deceased voters. It offered no evidence of that or any other allegations, and there are no attached exhibits to the filing.

It also does not note whether the cast ballots have, in fact, made it through the county’s ongoing verification process.

A separate letter sent to the Department of Justice on Wednesday by the Nevada Republican Party alleged to have identified 3,062 individuals who cast a ballot in Nevada while living in another state. It includes an attachment that lists only addresses of the allegedly ineligible voters but not names or any other identifying information. The Review-Journal has requested the names but has not yet received them.

There are a variety of reasons why a person residing out of the state may be allowed to cast a ballot in Nevada, including part-time residents of the state with homes elsewhere, attending college in another state, or people who have recently moved.

Complaint about machines

The lawsuit alleged the Agilis software used by Clark County as the initial step in signature verification of mail ballots violates state election law because other counties do not use the same method, which means Clark residents are “at an unequal risk of having their legal votes diluted by votes with mismatched signatures.”

Stokke, the lawsuit said, was stopped from voting in person after an election official told her a mail ballot had been submitted in her name. The filing alleged the Agilis machine verified this signature and allowed it to be counted.

In a news conference after the Trump campaign’s event, Gloria said he handled Stokke’s case personally.

“I personally dealt with Ms. Stokke,” Gloria said. “She brought her claim to me, we reviewed the ballot, and, in our opinion, it’s her signature. We also gave her an opportunity to provide a statement, if she wanted to object to that if she wanted to challenge that. She refused to do so.”

Gloria said an investigator with the Nevada secretary of state’s office also reviewed the matter.

“They had no issue with the assistance we tried to give her,” Gloria said.

Gloria said he was not aware of any illegal votes being counted.

The machine in question, county officials have said repeatedly, is only the first step in the signature verification process. If it rejects a signature, as it does 70 percent of the time, that ballot goes to county staff for verification, with Gloria having the final say.

The lawsuit also falsely asserts that the county is the only one in Nevada that does not verify signatures on absentee and mail ballots in person.

Problems with observation

It also alleged that another plaintiff, Chris Prudhome, listed on the lawsuit as a “credentialed member of the media” but on his Twitter account as a Republican strategist and Fox News guest commentator, was denied his right to observe the counting of ballots.

The lawsuit said that Prudhome attempted to watch the count at 12:45 a.m. on Wednesday, and he was told by Gloria the counting had already completed for that day.

This lawsuit is the fourth filed against either Clark County or both Clark and the state by Republican campaigns and the second seeking some sort of change to the counting or verification of mail ballots, which have trended heavily for Democrats.

As of Thursday morning, Trump trails Biden by about 11,400 votes in Nevada. Another round of vote tabulations is expected to be released Friday morning.

News conference

Trump’s campaign repeated many of the allegations made in the lawsuit at its news conference Thursday morning.

“We firmly believe that there are many voters in this group of mail-in voters that are not proper voters,” Adam Laxalt, former Nevada attorney general and co-chair of President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign in Nevada said at the Trump news conference outside the Clark County Election Department vote center in North Las Vegas. “We have received reports of many irregularities across the valley.”

Two Trump representatives spoke but refused to give their names as they alleged that illegal voting had unfolded.

One was former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, who declined to offer specifics when asked for evidence of the campaign’s allegations.

The other was Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union.

Stokke also spoke

In response to the Republican news conference, Nevada State Democratic Party Chairman William McCurdy II said Trump’s campaign has “no other recourse than scare tactics and baseless suits.”

“Republicans want to circumvent democracy because things aren’t going in their favor,” McCurdy said. “But the will of the people will not be ignored.”

Settlement in a prior lawsuit

The Trump campaign and Nevada Republican Party agreed to a settlement with the state and Clark County on a previous lawsuit that similarly tried to stop vote counting in the county.

That attempt was shut down in court, but the lawsuit was still technically active.

The campaign filed a motion with the State Supreme Court on Thursday that said Gloria had agreed to allow more observation of the county’s ballot duplication area in exchange for dismissal of the case. Ballot duplication occurs when a staff member finds something wrong with a voter’s physical ballot, which is then duplicated onto a blank ballot and counted.

   Stokke v Cegavske by Las Vegas Review-Journal on Scribd

   Barr DOJ and legal brief by Las Vegas Review-Journal on Scribd

   Nevada Moved Voters by Las Vegas Review-Journal on Scribd

rappleton@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0276. Follow @RoryDoesPhonics on Twitter. Review-Journal Staff Writer Glenn Puit contributed to this story.

Source: GOP campaigns, voter file lawsuit alleging improper votes in Nevada

Diverse “transparency” coalition in Nevada holds government accountable

By Robert Fellner, Nevada Policy Research Institute and Tod Story, ACLU of Nevada

Sunshine Week is dedicated to celebrating the principles of a transparent and accountable government, which makes it the perfect time to announce the launch of the Nevada Open Government Coalition.

The ideologically diverse Coalition was created to continue the success of our efforts to update the Nevada Public Records Act (NPRA) in 2019, and ensure that governments are transparent with the public as we seek information in the pursuit of accountability. The law aims to “foster democratic principles” by requiring that “all public books and public records of a government entity” are open to the public.

The latest example of a government agency trying to avoid their statutory obligations was highlighted in a state Supreme Court ruling from last month.

The case centered around efforts to obtain the results of an investigation by the Clark County School District into reports of inappropriate behavior by an elected school trustee.

While it’s hard to imagine an example of a document that more clearly falls within the realm of public records — the report about the conduct of an elected official seeking re-election was created by a public agency with public money — the school district nonetheless refused to disclose the report in response to a public records request submitted by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The newspaper was forced to sue and thankfully obtained the report just two weeks before the election, but only because it had the resources necessary to file a lawsuit.

One reason the newspaper was willing to take on the significant cost of litigation, however, was because of a provision within the Public Records Act that requires the government to reimburse the legal costs incurred by the requesting party, if a court finds that the government did, in fact, violate the law by withholding public records.

Absent this provision, the NPRA would be far less effective because government agencies could unlawfully withhold documents knowing that few organizations would be willing to pay the tens of thousands of dollars it would cost to force the government to comply.

This was precisely what CCSD argued for in its appeal.

Not content with wasting tax dollars to keep the investigation itself secret, the school district engaged in a lengthy appeal asking the Court to require the newspaper to pay its own legal fees.

The Nevada Supreme Court ultimately rejected the school district’s frivolous and self-serving argument. However, the whole ordeal will still end up consuming more than $125,000 of public money that should have gone instead towards education.

More must be done to ensure compliance with the Public Records Act. The importance of this law and government transparency cannot be overstated.

Using the public records law, the Reno Gazette-Journal recently discovered that Tesla defied a court order and search warrant by refusing to allow federal investigators access to their property. Given the enormous subsidies the state has provided to Tesla, the report is of significant public importance, but would never have seen the light of day if not for the public records law.

The Review-Journal used the law to help uncover numerous scandals and examples of corruption that officials would have preferred remained hidden, including failed oversight by the state Dental Board, improper use of government funds at the Las Vegas Convention Visitors Authority that would ultimately lead to criminal charges, and highly questionable activities at the Nevada DMV, where employees are alleged to have sabotaged a botched $75 million computer upgrade in an attempt to obtain bribes.

Thankfully, many public agencies comply with the law without a court order. But as this latest ruling reminds us, some agencies have no problem squandering significant amounts of tax dollars on frivolous legal efforts in an attempt to keep the public in the dark.

By educating, training, and providing resources on government transparency, the Nevada Open Government Coalition hopes to empower citizens with the knowledge and tools they need to hold public officials accountable.

The Coalition will also advocate for legislative changes designed to discourage the type of noncompliance exemplified in the recent CCSD case, which is sadly far too common.

To that end, the Coalition believes that public officials who violate the NPRA should face a penalty for doing so. This would ensure all Nevadans, taxpayers and public officials alike, are treated fairly under the law, while also providing the accountability needed to ensure Nevadans receive the fully transparent government to which they are entitled.

Robert Fellner is Vice President & Director of Policy of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, an independent organization that promotes free markets and individual freedom in the Silver State. Tod Story is the Executive Director of the ACLU of Nevada, which works to defend and advance the civil liberties and rights of all Nevadans. They are founding board members of the Nevada Open Government Coalition.

Source: Diverse “transparency” coalition in Nevada holds government accountable

Editorial: Courts should overturn ‘Red Flag’ law

A number of Nevada counties have passed Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions in response to state lawmakers passing a “Red Flag” law in 2019 that would allow persons accused of being a potential danger to themselves or others to have their firearms confiscated by order of a judge.

But rather than threatening to flout the law, the better route is the one taken by Elko County commissioners recently and that is to challenge the law in the courts. The commissioners voted to join a lawsuit filed in December by attorneys for NevadansCAN (Citizens Action Network) that argues the “Red Flag” section of Assembly Bill 291, which was passed on a near party-line vote with Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed, is unconstitutional because it violates the right to due process and the right to keep and bear arms — as guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the Nevada Constitution, which states, “Every citizen has the right to keep and bear arms for security and defense …”

According to the Elko Daily Free Press, at the start of the meeting Elko County Sheriff Aitor Narvaiza declared, “On Jan. 7, 2019, I was elected sheriff of Elko County. I took an oath to protect the constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Nevada. I’m here to tell the lawmakers to keep your hands off our guns.”

He was quoted as saying, “Let’s enforce the laws that we have which are reasonable instead of enacting more laws which are unconstitutional. … A great president once said this country cannot be defeated in combat, but it can be defeated within. Right now this country is crumbling, slowly, due to weak-minded politicians and lawmakers who push unconstitutional laws for personal gains and to fill their pockets.”

He received several rounds of applause the newspaper reported.

The litigation appears to have sound legal footing due to a recent unanimous Nevada Supreme Court ruling. The court found that gun ownership is such a fundamental right that it cannot be taken away merely by a judge’s ruling, opining that a person charged with misdemeanor domestic battery is entitled to a trial by jury, because the state Legislature in 2017 enacted a law saying someone convicted of such a crime could have their right to keep and bear arms denied.

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that only those persons charged with a “serious” crime are entitled to a jury trial. The unanimous Nevada opinion written by Justice Lidia Stiglich states the change in state law to prohibit firearms possession by someone convicted of domestic violence effectively increases the “penalty” and makes the crime “serious” rather than “petty.”

“In our opinion, this new penalty — a prohibition on the right to bear arms as guaranteed by both the United States and Nevada Constitutions — ‘clearly reflect[s] a legislative determination that the offense [of misdemeanor domestic battery] is a serious one,’” Stiglich wrote in a case out of Las Vegas.

The NevadansCAN lawsuit declares, “This (“Red Flag”) law makes mincemeat of the due process of law, will endanger law enforcement and the public, and is a tool for stalkers and abusers to disarm innocent victims. Empirical data is available that nearly a third of such orders are improperly issued against innocent people, in states with experience of the operation of such a law.”

Proponents of such laws often cite the Oct. 1, 2017, mass shooting that left 58 country music concert goers dead in Law Vegas as justification, but neither this “Red Flag” law nor the recently enacted tougher background check law would have prevented that tragedy.

AB291 defies the Second Amendment right to bear arms, the Fourth Amendment right to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures, the Fifth Amendment right to not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law and the 14th Amendment prohibition against states abridging the privileges and immunities of U.S. citizens.

It must be overturned and litigation is the proper route to do so.

A version of this editorial appeared this week in some of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel,  Sparks Tribune and the Lincoln County Record.

Source: Editorial: Courts should overturn ‘Red Flag’ law

Nevada Supreme Court holds hearing on Pahrump water order appeal | Pahrump Valley Times

A decision on water law and the extent of the Nevada State Engineer’s authority over domestic wells is one step closer to reality, with the Nevada Supreme Court recently holding a hearing to take oral arguments from both parties in the appeal lawsuit filed by the engineer’s office over water Order #1293(A).

A decision on water law and the extent of the Nevada State Engineer’s authority over domestic wells is one step closer to reality, with the Nevada Supreme Court recently holding a hearing to take oral arguments from both parties in the appeal lawsuit filed by the engineer’s office over water Order #1293(A).

The water order was issued in Dec. 2017 as a method of curbing the drilling of new domestic wells in Pahrump’s Basin #162. The order created a new requirement for property owners to purchase two-acre feet of water rights and relinquish them back to the state prior to drilling a new domestic well, unless water rights had already been relinquished or dedicated to the property for that purpose.

This prompted immediate resistance from local property owners, real estate agents and well-drilling companies. Together, those opposing the order formed Pahrump Fair Water LLC and filed a lawsuit with a Nevada district court to halt the order. That court decision late last year to overturn the water order, leading to the state engineer’s appeal of that decision.

The matter has been with the Nevada Supreme Court since early this year, with a stay on the lower court’s decision issued, keeping the order in effect until such time as the Supreme Court renders a decision. The case, #77722, has now been submitted for a final ruling.

Due to the significance of the subject at hand and the wide-ranging impact a decision on the case could have, the decision has been placed in the hands of the “en banc” court rather than a smaller panel. In typical cases, a panel of only three Nevada Supreme Court justices is used to make rulings but for the appeal on Order #1293(A) the entire court of all seven justices is being utilized.

Attorney David Rigdon of Taggart and Taggart, LTD, the law firm representing Pahrump Fair Water, explained that the hearing held on Nov. 5 focused primarily on two central arguments, whether the state engineer needed to provide notice and hold a hearing before issuing the order, and whether or not the state engineer had the authority to regulate domestic wells in this manner in the first place.

“Both sides had what we call in the business a ‘hot bench’ with judges regularly interrupting the presentation to ask questions,” Rigdon detailed when asked to provide a brief overview of what occurred at the hearing on Nov. 5. “Most of the questions about the notice were directed at the state engineer’s attorney, while most of the questions about legal authority were directed at us.”

The Nevada Attorney General’s Office, which is representing the state engineer’s office, declined to provide an overview of the Nov. 5 hearing.

However, Rigdon said he felt both sides had made good presentations but there was no way of telling which direction the justices would ultimately turn. He, Pahrump Fair Water and the state engineer’s office, as well as the many local property owners and other stakeholders involved, will simply have to wait to see how the Nevada Supreme Court rules.

For those who would like to listen to the oral arguments made during the Nevada Supreme Court hearing visit bit.ly/2QAokKH

Docket Number(s): 77722
Date: 11/05/2019 Time: 10:00 a.m. Location: Carson City
Before the En Banc Court
Appearances:
James N. Bolotin
Paul G. Taggart

Start Time Speaker Notes
10:03:42 AM Chief Justice Gibbons Voluntary Disclosure
10:05:11 AM Chief Justice Gibbons Case Called
10:05:44 AM James N. Bolotin As counsel for the Appellant
10:23:57 AM Paul G. Taggart As counsel for the Respondents
10:43:17 AM James N. Bolotin As counsel for the Appellant
10:48:49 AM Chief Justice Gibbons End Argument, Case Submitted

Source: Nevada Supreme Court holds hearing on Pahrump water order appeal | Pahrump Valley Times