The top election official for swing state Nevada’s most populous county relented and finally decided to look into “bad addresses” on the state’s voter rolls. While claims of voters residing at strip clubs, bars, and casinos should have raised red flags for Clark County Registrar of Voters Lorena Portillo, apparently it took the threat of a court order to grab her attention. 

As The Federalist has reported, election integrity watchdog the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) has, even “since before the 2020 election,” investigated bad addresses in the Silver State — individuals in the voter registration database who purportedly live at commercial addresses. PILF investigators have documented “hundreds of questionable addresses” on the rolls, including vacant lots, fast food restaurants, gas stations, tattoo parlors, and funeral homes. They have captured on camera employees and business owners confirming that the individuals listed as residing at the commercial addresses in fact did not. 

“I was looking for Ronald or William Phelps,” the foundation’s Lauren Bis, director of communication and engagement, says to a bartender in Las Vegas, according to video footage from PILF. “I don’t know who that is,” the barkeep replies. She chuckles, likely at the thought that someone would list a bar as their address.  

It sounds absurd, but this is serious stuff on the election integrity front, especially in a state accused of having “impossibly high” voter registration numbers, and one that allows late-arriving ballots to be counted long after Election Day. 

‘Bad Optics’

Bis told me that PILF sent Portillo a letter with photos and details about the bad addresses, advising the office to investigate further. The foundation received no response before filing a lawsuit in Nevada’s 8th Judicial District Court seeking a writ of mandamus ordering the elections official to do her job. According to Bis, the Clark petition drew the attention of bogus Russian dossier peddler and Democrat Party problem fixer Marc Elias. “As we filed the lawsuit, Mark Elias filed the motion to intervene,” she told me.

Bis also told me that Secretary of State Francisco “Cisco” Aguilar then came calling. He planned to intervene in the lawsuit. “Shortly after, we got a call from the Secretary of State saying they would file a motion to intervene,” she said.

While Aguilar is a partisan Democrat, PILF assumed he would intervene on behalf of election law and clean voter rolls. Nope. He planned to defend the county registrar’s recalcitrance, Bis said. 

But a funny thing happened leading up to the court hearing, scheduled for last week. Portillo apparently agreed to PILF’s demands to investigate the well-documented bad addresses on Clark County’s voter rolls and “informed the Petitioners that her office did conduct an investigation of the 90 addresses and made determinations,” according to the stipulation order that followed.

Why the sudden change of heart? 

“I think part of them didn’t want to go up against us in court, where we would show photos of the strip clubs and bars where these individuals said they resided,” Bis told me in an interview. “It was bad optics all around and really indefensible, and I think they did not want to be in a court of law defending the status quo.” 

“We asked them to do the bare minimum, which was to investigate these, and they looked ridiculous,” Bis added. 

PILF dismissed the case after learning that Portillo ultimately had her office investigate the suspect names on the rolls and make corrections and fix errors where needed, Bis said. 

Stephanie Wheatley, spokeswoman for Clark County, said in an email response that the county is unable to comment on litigation.

PILF can.

“Because of PILF’s lawsuit, Clark County was forced to investigate crazy addresses listed as residences on the voter roll including strip clubs, casinos, and gas stations,” said J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, in an Aug. 23 press release. “Without this litigation, mail ballots would have gone to improper addresses.”

PILF is seeking the same in Washoe County, home to Reno and Nevada’s second-most populous county. 

‘So Much Chaos’

Complicating election integrity efforts is Nevada’s 2022 move to holding all-mail ballot elections in which all active registered voters automatically receive a ballot in the mail. The ballot arrives whether or not the voter requests one, although voters may go through the process of opting out. That deadline is Friday. Ballots start going out later this month. 

Deep blue Clark and Washoe counties made the difference in delivering Democrat Joe Biden a victory in swing state Nevada by some 30,000 votes over President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. The Silver State’s all-mail ballot system will be closely watched in the rematch of 2020. 

“It has caused so much chaos in this state,” Bis said. “The automatic vote-by-mail experiment has to end.” 

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.