Tag: nevada

Nevada Secretary of State’s Office Launches Investigations into Potential 2024 Election Fraud Violations Including 180 Cases of “Double Voting”

The Nevada Secretary of State’s Office has announced the launch of investigations into potential election law violations during the 2024 election cycle.

The investigations, detailed in the Secretary of State’s third quarterly election security report, stem from reports filed by citizens, automated security measures, and interagency collaborations.

The office emphasized that each case is being thoroughly investigated to determine the validity of the allegations and assess any necessary legal actions.

“Election security is a top priority for my office, and we’ve taken significant steps to ensure that Nevada’s elections are some of the safest in the country. The Secretary of State’s Office invested in enhanced cybersecurity, technology and investigative teams to ensure that our elections are protected and any issues that may come up can be addressed immediately,” said Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar.

“The 2024 election cycle was more secure than ever, and voters should be confident in the electoral process and their vote.”

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National Guard troops on standby in Washington state, Oregon and Nevada as a precaution for ‘potential’ election unrest

Ahead of potential civil unrest due to Tuesday’s presidential election, the National Guard is on standby as a precaution in several states, including Washington state and Oregon, where hundreds of ballots were damaged or destroyed after at least three ballot drop boxes were recently set on fire, officials say.

Almost all the ballots set ablaze on Monday were in a drop box in Vancouver, Washington, while most ballots in a drop box in Portland, Oregon, survived a fire set the same day, election officials said. The incidents are believed to be connected to a third fire on October 8, also in Vancouver. Portland police released a physical description of a suspect but said they’ve not identified him.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee addressed the ballot box fires in a news release Friday announcing the National Guard being placed on standby, saying, “The southwest region of Washington state has already experienced specific instances of election-related unrest.”

Inslee did not disclose how many troops would be activated on Tuesday, but said they will be available to support law enforcement from Monday to Thursday, according to the news release.

The US Department of Homeland Security has warned that threats to “election infrastructure” remain high, Inslee added.

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Nevada Election Chief Blocks Inspection of Suspect Voter Names in Swing State

Nevada’s top election official told local election directors not to investigate the names of thousands of people who left the state but remain on its voter rolls.

The watchdog group Citizens Outreach Foundation recently sued four jurisdictions in Nevada to force a review of the voter registration lists. 

The plaintiff, responding to an August memo from the office of Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, a Democrat, asks that the court order the local offices to process or review challenges to some voters’ names.

In what Citizens Outreach Foundation President Chuck Muth calls a “David vs. Goliath” battle, the Left’s well-financed big guns have intervened to fight any efforts to maintain the accuracy of voter lists. Those big guns include Democratic superlawyer Marc Elias and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The foundation flagged the suspect names using data from voter registration files and the U.S. Postal Service’s change-of-address list.

“Several counties had started to process the challenges, until the secretary of state memo,” Muth told The Daily Signal. “After that, they said that in light of the secretary’s memo, we are not going to process.”

Litigation was the last resort, Muth said, asserting that election clerks “got caught between a rock and a hard place.” 

The Citizen Outreach Foundation is suing the state’s largest jurisdiction, Clark County, which includes Las Vegas. The suit also targets Washoe County, Carson City, and Storey County.

The foundation established what it calls the Pigpen Project, aimed at cleaning Nevada’s voter registration rolls. It’s critical that election offices process challenges in order to flag mail-in ballots from ineligible voters, Muth said. 

The organization initially flagged just under 4,000 names for election clerks in late July. After findings in late August and early September, the total number of suspect names on Nevada’s voter rolls is about 33,000 statewide, Muth said. 

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AI ruling on jobless claims could make mistakes courts can’t undo, experts warn

Nevada will soon become the first state to use AI to help speed up the decision-making process when ruling on appeals that impact people’s unemployment benefits.

The state’s Department of Employment, Training, and Rehabilitation (DETR) agreed to pay Google $1,383,838 for the AI technology, a 2024 budget document shows, and it will be launched within the “next several months,” Nevada officials told Gizmodo.

Nevada’s first-of-its-kind AI will rely on a Google cloud service called Vertex AI Studio. Connecting to Google’s servers, the state will fine-tune the AI system to only reference information from DETR’s database, which officials think will ensure its decisions are “more tailored” and the system provides “more accurate results,” Gizmodo reported.

Under the contract, DETR will essentially transfer data from transcripts of unemployment appeals hearings and rulings, after which Google’s AI system will process that data, upload it to the cloud, and then compare the information to previous cases.

In as little as five minutes, the AI will issue a ruling that would’ve taken a state employee about three hours to reach without using AI, DETR’s information technology administrator, Carl Stanfield, told The Nevada Independent. That’s highly valuable to Nevada, which has a backlog of more than 40,000 appeals stemming from a pandemic-related spike in unemployment claims while dealing with “unforeseen staffing shortages” that DETR reported in July.

“The time saving is pretty phenomenal,” Stanfield said.

As a safeguard, the AI’s determination is then reviewed by a state employee to hopefully catch any mistakes, biases, or perhaps worse, hallucinations where the AI could possibly make up facts that could impact the outcome of their case.

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Nevada receives grant to establish state-run hate crime reporting hotline

A new grant from the Department of Justice will be used to set up a Nevada hate crime reporting hotline.

Earlier this month, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford announced his office will receive $1,164,424 in funding.

Nevada is the only state this cycle that will receive the grant.

“In seeking justice for hate crimes, it is important to remember victims need resources and support to feel safe and valued in their communities,” Ford said. “This funding will aid in bridging the gap between hate crime victims and the services available to them.”

The funding will be used to establish policies and procedures for the hotline, implementing focused training for staff regarding the new hotline, hiring new staff members, and integrating the hotline into the Attorney General office’s preexisting Constituent Services framework.

The FBI defines a hate crime as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.”

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Scientists still baffled from giant human skeletons up to 10 feet tall decades after initial discovery

A series of mysterious giant skeletons up to 10 feet tall reportedly discovered in and around Nevada caves last century — dubbed the “Giants of Lovelock” — are still baffling scientists decades later.

The claims about supersized humans who roamed the area around Lovelock, a remote town 90 miles northeast of Reno, thousands of years ago are rooted in Native America lore, which tells of fierce, redheaded, pale-skinned giants who arrived from Central America by boat and attacked local tribes.

After years of war, the foreign invaders were chased into a cave and slaughtered en masse, according to stories passed down by the indigenous Paiute people.

Experts believe the tale of the giant warriors’ violent extermination is likely a legend, but reports of discoveries made in the area of Lovelock decades ago have continued to raise many unanswered questions.

The first foray into the Lovelock cave was made in 1911, when a pair of miners searching for guano, or bat excrement used as fertilizer, allegedly unearthed 60 human skeletons, including some measuring between 7 and 8 feet tall.

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Nevada Marijuana Possession Limit More Than Doubles Under New Law Taking Effect Monday

Effective Monday, the marijuana possession limit for adults in Nevada will more than double to 2.5 ounces. Recreational retailers will also become authorized to serve medical cannabis patients as well, without having to get a separate license.

The policy changes are coming into effect under a large-scale marijuana reform bill that Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) signed into law in June. The legislation also broadens eligibility for participation in the market by people with prior felony convictions.

One of the key provisions of the law increases the possession and purchase limit for cannabis from one ounce to 2.5 ounces. The amount of cannabis concentrates that adults can possess is also being doubled from one-eighth of an ounce to one-quarter of an ounce.

Also, it makes it so adult-use marijuana retailers will no longer need to have a separate medical cannabis license to serve patients. Recreational retailers will automatically serve as dual licensees, and existing medical cannabis licensees can apply to dually serve adult consumers.

Regulators will no longer be able to issue or renew medical marijuana licenses after Monday—unless the applicant is located in a jurisdiction that has opted out of permitting adult-use facilities. Medical cannabis patients would be exempt from the state excise tax at recreational retailers.

Fees for licensing applications and renewals will also be reduced under the new law.

Another major change will give regulators discretion when considering the issuance of marijuana business licenses to people with prior felony convictions.

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Nevada Officials Approve Plan To Let People With Marijuana Convictions Become Police Officers

Nevada officials have officially adopted a proposal to amend hiring standards for police officers to allow job candidates who were previously disqualified for certain marijuana-related offenses to now be eligible for law enforcement positions.

After holding a public hearing on the reform in October, the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) voted to approve the change, revising regulations around hiring that currently prevent a person from becoming a peace officer if they have been convicted of an offense involving the unlawful use, sale or possession of a controlled substance.

The new language says the restriction doesn’t apply “to a person who has been convicted of an offense involving the unlawful use, sale, or possession of marijuana if the offense is not unlawful at the time the person submits an application for certification as a police officer.”

The commission said the change will expand the pool of eligible candidates for law enforcement positions and “aid agencies in the ability to fill much needed positions.” There will be no adverse effects from the reform, it says, nor additional costs to regulators.

Approval of the change, which was first proposed in May, does not mean that officers can use cannabis once employed, but it represents a significant policy change, especially given that the current rules are written in a way that explicitly emphasizes the no-tolerance policy for marijuana.

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Nevada Commission Seeks Comment On Plan To Let People With Marijuana Convictions Become Police Officers

A Nevada commission will hear public comment this week on a proposal that would amend hiring standards for police officers to allow job candidates who were previously disqualified for certain marijuana-related offenses to be eligible for law enforcement positions.

The change being considered by the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) at Thursday meeting would amend regulations around hiring that currently prevent a person from becoming a peace officer if they have been convicted of an offense involving the unlawful use, sale or possession of a controlled substance.

The new language would state that the restriction doesn’t apply “to a person who has been convicted of an offense involving the unlawful use, sale, or possession of marijuana if the offense is not unlawful at the time the person submits an application for certification as a police officer.”

A notice of intent says the change would expand the pool of eligible candidates for law enforcement positions and “aid agencies in the ability to fill much needed positions.” There would be no adverse effects from the change, it says, nor additional costs to regulators.

Members of the public wishing to comment on the proposal can either appear in person at the October 26 meeting, held at 8 a.m. in Napa Room B of the Southpoint Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

Approval of the change would not mean that officers could use cannabis once employed, but it would represent a significant policy change, especially given that the current rules are written in a way that explicitly emphasizes the no-tolerance policy for marijuana.

“As with any psychoactive drug, POST strongly believes there is no room for marijuana usage in the policing profession,” the current administration manual says. “POST strongly encourages law enforcement agencies across the state to adopted [sic] policies prohibiting the on or off duty recreational or medical use of marijuana.”

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M Cave and the Unexplained Disappearance of Kenny Veach

“That aint nothing. I am a long distance hiker. One time during one of my hikes out by Nellis Air Force Base, I found a hidden cave. The entrance to the cave was shaped like a perfect capital M. I always enter every cave I find, but as I began to enter this particular cave, my whole body began to vibrate. The closer I got to the cave entrance, the worse the vibrating became. Suddenly I became very scared and high-tailed it out of there. That was one of the strangest things that ever happened to me.”

In late 2014, these words were posted to a YouTube video titled “Son of an Area 51 Technician.” The man behind the screen was Las Vegas resident and avid hiker Kenny Veach, using the screenname snakebitmgee. Unbeknownst to him at the time, his comment would set in motion a series of events that would lead to one of Nevada’s most puzzling urban legends.

Kenny’s comment sparked interest like wildfire. After posting his original comment, several YouTube users encouraged hiker Kenny to seek out the cave and enter again, this time documenting his hike, and providing evidence of his strange discovery. He obliged.

He set off to find the mysterious cave for a second time, armed with a 9-millimeter handgun and a video camera. Upon his return, he posted a video of his discoveries. Much to the dismay of those following his claims, he was unable to locate the cave, and his video didn’t seem to reveal any clues to the mysterious M Cave he had discussed in his original comment.

His video was met with much criticism, and YouTube commenters both encouraged and provoked him to try for a third time to seek out the cave. Kenny again obliged, though one comment would stand out among all the others as an ominous foretelling.

It read, “No! Do not go back there. If you find that cave entrance, don’t go in, you won’t get out.”

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