Joe Lombardo Voting Rights Election Denial Nevada

Joe Lombardo Told Donors There's 'No Place Easier to Vote in the Nation Than Nevada. Unfortunately.' He Has Twice Vetoed Prison Time for Fake Electors.

In audio from an October fundraiser obtained by the Nevada Current, Gov. Joe Lombardo called Nevada the easiest place in the nation to vote — then added 'unfortunately,' to laughter. He has spent his term trying to roll back mail voting, and twice vetoed bills to punish fake presidential electors.

MAGA Report Cards · Oct 25, 2026

Joe Lombardo Told Donors There's 'No Place Easier to Vote in the Nation Than Nevada. Unfortunately.' He Has Twice Vetoed Prison Time for Fake Electors. — Photo: John Locher / AP Photo, via This Is Reno

At a fundraiser this month, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo asked his supporters to get their friends to the polls. Then he told them how he feels about how easy that is.

In audio obtained by the Nevada Current, Lombardo said:

"If you are close to individuals and you ask 'em 'have you voted' and they say 'no,' convince them. There's no place easier to vote in the nation than Nevada. Unfortunately."

The crowd laughed at "unfortunately." Lombardo went on: "Early voting starts the 17th. In-person voting is on the third. Then you can put your mail ballot in five days after the fact." His supporters roared at the suggestion that mail ballots are suspect.

Lombardo's campaign did not answer when the Current asked what he meant by "unfortunately."

He has tried to make it harder

The joke lines up with his record. Lombardo, who is running for a second term against Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford, has made changing Nevada's voting rules a focus of his first term, the Current reports:

Mail ballots for everyone. In 2023, he sought legislation to undo Nevada's universal mail voting. Lawmakers refused to take it up.
Ballot deadlines. The same 2023 bill would have thrown out mail ballots that arrive after polls close on Election Day, even if they were mailed well before. Nevada counts them if they arrive by 5 p.m. four days after the election.
Voter ID. He supports a voter ID ballot measure that Nevadans are expected to approve in November.
The SAVE database. This fall he urged Nevada's secretary of state to run voters through Trump's SAVE citizenship database before the election, the same tool that wrongly flagged citizens as noncitizens elsewhere.

Voter fraud is almost nonexistent in the United States, the Current notes. When Trump's Department of Homeland Security claimed this July that Nevada might have as many as 15,903 noncitizens registered to vote, the government eventually whittled that number to 185, and the state says there is no proof any of them are undocumented.

Fake electors: two chances, two vetoes

After Joe Biden won Nevada in 2020, six Nevada Republicans signed certificates falsely claiming Donald Trump had won the state and sent them to Congress and the National Archives. When he charged them in 2023, Attorney General Aaron Ford said no Nevada statute directly addressed fake electors.

Lawmakers tried twice to write one. Lombardo vetoed both:

2023: A bill to make serving as a fake elector a felony, with four to 10 years in prison. Lombardo vetoed it, saying it "does nothing to ensure the security of our elections."
2025: Lawmakers came back with SB 102, which cut the penalty to one to four years. Lombardo vetoed that one too, this time objecting to the powers it gave the secretary of state.

One of the six fake electors, Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald, was among Lombardo's supporters when he filed for reelection in March, according to the Current. Last week, Lombardo campaigned with Joey Gilbert, whom the Current calls an election denier.

What it adds up to

Joe Lombardo told a room of donors that Nevada is the easiest place in the nation to vote and called that unfortunate. As governor, he pushed to end universal mail voting and to throw out mail ballots that arrive after Election Day, and he twice vetoed bills, in 2023 and 2025, that would have made it a crime to pose as a presidential elector, after six Nevada Republicans did exactly that in 2020.