** This letter is being posted on behalf of the Committees to Recall Trustee Matthew Dent and Trustee Sara Schmitz **
The Committees are aware of the confusion and frustration surrounding the significant number of invalidated signatures by the Washoe County Registrar’s Office.
The meticulous signature review work done over the past couple of weeks has uncovered what we believe are significant signature checking discrepancies, and demonstrates the Registrar’s verification process is flawed; resulting in substantial errors, the wrongful invalidation of many otherwise valid signatures and likely the disenfranchisement of hundreds of Incline Village and Crystal Bay voters.
Examples of improper invalidation and disenfranchisement discovered include:
- Signatures may have been incorrectly invalidated as “not registered,” when in fact, the person was a registered voter who appeared to be in the voter database.
- Petitions timely submitted to the Registrar that were overlooked or dismissed, and not counted toward the final signature count.
- Signatures incorrectly invalidated as “address change” on one petition but valid on the other petition.
- Issues surrounding the date of signing of the petition(s).
- Substantial concerns that the Registrar may have failed to provide the voters a reasonable time to cure minor technicalities by invalidating signatures in the final 24-36 hours of their verification process.
- Substantial number of signatures were invalidated due to a submission date controversy which is being investigated by the Attorney.
Additional clear, obvious, and legitimate challenges have been identified for the invalidated signatures reviewed to date, and since the initial Appeal was filed with the Secretary of State. A supplemental Appeal will be filed shortly with the Secretary of State to include these recent discoveries.
The Appeal process with the Secretary of State does not set a time for when their investigation is to be completed. The Attorney for the Recall Campaigns has raised this issue with the Secretary of State and requested an expedited review.
You may also have seen a “hit piece” about the Recall Attorney and an “ethical” conflict of interest issue. This accusation is unfounded and articles written by this person are often questionable and biased.
- The Attorney for the recall was retained to file the Appeal with the Secretary of State to challenge the signature verification completed by the Washoe County Registrar Office. The Appeal is against the Registrar’s Office and has no connection or association with IVGID.
- Moreover, Trustees Dent and Schmitz were never clients of the Attorney. IVGID was the client.
- The Attorney represents the Recall Committee in their appeal challenging the Washoe County Registrar’s recall certification process. There is no conflict of interest as IVGID is not involved in the recall.
We would like to thank everyone who signed the petitions in an effort to recall IVGID Trustees Matthew Dent and Sara Schmitz. We believe we had more than enough valid signatures on each petition to more than meet the 1,801 minimum. We are committed to seeing this process through, and we will have more information to share in the coming weeks.
** This letter is being posted on behalf of the Committees to Recall Trustee Matthew Dent and Trustee Sara Schmitz **