Hold on to your butts, Nevada: You’re in for a hell of a rematch in the secretary of state race come November. Jim Marchant, a prominent election denier who has spent years spreading false conspiracies about voting and elections, clinched the GOP nomination for secretary of state this week. He’ll once again face incumbent Sec. Cisco Aguilar (D), to whom he lost by a little more than two points in 2022. 

The victory puts Marchant — who has said he would not have certified President Joe Biden’s 2020 win in Nevada — one step closer to overseeing elections in one of the country’s most important battlegrounds. And it underlines how election denialism remains a driving force in Republican politics.

• Marchant has long been one of the most visible election deniers running for office. After losing a U.S. House race in 2020, he sued to overturn the result, alleging widespread voter fraud. A judge rejected his request.
  
  

• Marchant’s probably best known for his role in President Donald Trump’s broader “fake elector” scheme to overturn the 2020 election in Nevada, and his campaign platform is closely aligned with the MAGA anti-voting playbook. He’s pushed for requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to register and vote, ending universal mail-in ballots, eliminating electronic voting machines, hand-counting ballots and moving toward single-day voting.
  
  

• But his most bonkers policy is his unique pitch for voter ID: Unregister, then reregister all voters in Nevada — using biometrics to verify people's identities. "Fingerprint or scan your pupils, or there's new technology that actually … can detect your heartbeat, and everybody's heartbeat is unique, so there's a way to identify somebody," he told a local outlet.
  
  

• More on Jim Marchant’s election denialism >>>

Chad Bianco unlawfully seized ballots. Now, he says a law to protect against that is unconstitutional. 

Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff who unlawfully seized hundreds of thousands of ballots cast in California’s redistricting referendum, is pissed about a new state law to prevent, well, just that.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a law last month that bans anyone — including federal or local law enforcement — from unlawfully seizing ballots, voter rolls, or other election materials. The law was a direct response to Bianco’s actions.

• California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) filed a lawsuit in March challenging Bianco’s ballot seizure and investigation into alleged election fraud, which is still playing out in the state’s Supreme Court.
  
  

• In a new legal filing, Bianco’s attorneys argue that the new law is unconstitutional because it protects ballots from seizure even when there’s a judicially issued search warrant. Bianco’s attorneys also argue that the law shouldn’t apply to Bianco’s actions because it didn’t yet exist when he seized the ballots.
  
  

• It’s the first time Bianco has directly addressed the new legislation, which was written and signed into law directly because of the sheriff’s actions. No surprise he’s not a fan!
  
  

• Read the full letter from Bianco’s attorney >>>

Tina Peters is fresh out of prison and still peddling bonkers election conspiracy theories 

When Peters, a former Colorado GOP election clerk who was convicted for her role in a 2021 voting system breach, had her sentence commuted by Gov. Jared Polis (D) last month, Polis said that she had learned her lesson. But less than two weeks after leaving prison, the convicted election denier is still peddling the same election conspiracies that led to her incarceration.

Last week, Peters appeared on another far-right podcast where she spread more conspiracy theories about rigged voting machines and Democrats stealing elections.

• “The truth is that they’re stealing our elections, and they’re very bold about it,” Peters told conservative podcaster Steve Stern. “And so far nothing’s being done. My main concern when I was in prison was that we’re going to lose this country if people don’t start exposing this and speaking out.”
  
  
• “We obviously have to get rid of the machines,” Peters added. “There should be no machine, no vendor that has that much control over our votes. And when I see what’s happening in California, and New York City, and Virginia, and other states, the thing that I want people to know… is it’s not just happening with these elected officials. It’s happening on every ballot initiative.”

Sounds like someone who definitely learned her lesson.

• It’s not the first podcast appearance Peters has made since she was freed from prison earlier this month. Hours after leaving a Colorado correctional facility, she appeared on former Trump senior advisor Steve Bannon’s podcast, where she baselessly claimed Democrats rigged voting machines to flip votes.
  
  
• More on Tina Peters’ crazy election conspiracy theories >>>