ICYMI: Jim Marchant Wants to Ban Mail-In Voting, but Voted by Mail in Florida, Despite Living in Nevada

Last week, a bombshell new report from CNN found that Jim Marchant, the GOP nominee for Secretary of State in Nevada, who wants to ban mail-in voting, voted by mail in Florida for several years, despite the fact that he was living in Nevada.

“Marchant is an election-denier and extremist politician who wants to limit the freedom to vote and silence the voice of Nevadans,” said End Citizens United // Let America Vote President Tiffany Muller. “Now, we know that he’s a self-serving hypocrite too.”

See below for coverage of Marchant’s hypocrisy:

• CNN: Nevada’s GOP nominee for top election post wants to eliminate mail voting but voted by mail multiple times

  • Jim Marchant has called to end mail voting by falsely claiming the voting method is rife with fraud. But public voting records reviewed by CNN’s KFile show he voted by mail multiple times, including while living in one state and voting in another.

  • Marchant voted absentee by mail in Florida in three separate elections – 2006, 2008 and 2010 — while he was living in Nevada. He moved to the Silver State in 2005, according to his secretary of state campaign biography, and did not vote there until 2012, according to public records.

  • The Trump-endorsed nominee heads the America First Secretary of State Coalition, a group of election deniers seeking state election posts who regurgitate election conspiracies. Their platform calls to eliminate mail voting, implement an “aggressive voter roll clean-up” and move to single-day voting.

  • Marchant also voted by mail in Nevada’s 2018 special election and 2020 primary, in which he won the Republican nomination for the state’s 4th Congressional District. In that election, he encouraged voters using mail ballots to “be sure and follow the directions perfectly. We would not want your vote to be thrown out because of a mistake.”

  • Months later, however, Marchant falsely declared widespread voter fraud in the 2020 general election and cast himself as a false victim of voter fraud after he lost his congressional bid to Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford.

• Las Vegas Review Journal: Marchant denounces mail ballots, although he’s used them in the past

  • While touting false claims that mail-in ballots contribute to election fraud, Republican secretary of state hopeful Jim Marchant has voted on multiple occasions with a mail-in ballot while a registered voter in Florida.

  • Marchant voted in Florida with mail-in ballots in 2006, 2008 and 2010, as first reported by CNN.

  • Before he lost his election in 2020, however, Marchant did not denounce the use of mail-in ballots.

  • In May 2020, he tweeted, “Mail-in Ballots have mostly arrived. Be sure and follow the directions perfectly. We would not want your vote to be thrown out because of a mistake. Please Vote for Jim Marchant for Congressional District 4 in Nevada!”

  • Following his election loss, he and many other Republicans began pushing unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 election was stolen, and mail-in ballots were part of the problem.

  • In response, Aguilar’s campaign manager Gabriel Di Chiara said in a statement that it is “not surprising” Marchant voted by mail for years only to be against it after he lost.

  • “The fact is, Nevada runs some of the most accessible and secure elections in the country with the policies we already have on the books. All of his proposals, from ending early voting to wiping the voter rolls to getting rid of mail ballots, are solutions in search of a problem that doesn’t exist,” Di Chiara said.

  • While Nevada has done a lot to make its elections accessible and secure, Aguilar will propose legislation to protect Nevada’s election workers from threats and harassment that they have been subjected to since the 2020 election by protecting their information, Di Chiara added.

  • Nevada Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske’s office spent more than 125 hours investigating claims of fraud that the Nevada Republican Party brought forward, but found no widespread evidence of fraud would have altered the results of the election.

  • This may not be the first time Marchant’s comments could be perceived as hypocritical. While criticizing his opponent Aguilar for not knowing much about owning a business — even though Aguilar does own a business — Marchant faced multiple lawsuits for one of his companies that resulted in more than $4 million of legal settlements.

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