WASHINGTON – The first legal battle of Election Day has begun, and it ended quickly.
A judge in Nevada ruled against a lawsuit by the campaign of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump Tuesday against the registrar in Clark County, Nevada, over last week’s early voting, CBS News reports.
Judge Gloria Sturman said the lawsuit was asking for the identities of poll workers, and that that would have opened the workers up to “harassment.” She also said Clark County officials are already required to preserve the records the Trump campaign was asking to preserve.
Trump and Nevada Republican Party chief Michael McDonald had claimed in the suit that voters who were standing in line at several voting locations should not have been allowed in to vote after the scheduled closing time. They filed the suit late Tuesday morning; Sturman made her decision at about 2:30 p.m. EDT.
Someone identified in the Trump filing as a “poll watcher” estimated that between 150 and 300 people entered the line after 8 p.m., when the polling station was supposed to close, CBS News reports. They wanted the ballots cast during the disputed events Friday night to be set aside, and not counted along with others.
CBS News reported that registrar Joe Gloria said state law allows voters who are in line at closing time to cast ballots. “We’ve had a long history of following the same policy,” Gloria told CBS News, adding that a similar extension happened in 2012.
The polls in Virginia close at 7 p.m. on Election Day, and at 8 p.m. in D.C. and Maryland; if you’re in line by then, you can vote.
