Native American tribal members were allegedly offered gifts such as jewelry and gift cards in exchange for voting in Nevada, videos being used by the Trump campaign’s legal team claim.
The videos are being used by the Trump campaign to challenge the outcome of Nevada’s presidential election results, an op-ed in the Washington Examiner reported Thursday.
In one 18-minute long video, Reno-Sparks Indian Colony (RSIC) spokeswoman Bethany Sam offers gifts to people who show up to vote. Sam advertises a raffle where participants can win t-shirts, masks, jewelry, and Visa gift cards worth $25, $100, $250, and $500 if they can prove that they voted. (RELATED: Trump Campaign Hit With Yet Another Legal Defeat In Pennsylvania)
Sam is later shown wearing a Biden-Harris mask and standing with the Biden-Harris campaign bus.
The Trump campaign presented the videos in a Carson City court Thursday and referred to a “Native American Votes for Dollars Scandal” in a brief, the op-ed claimed.
“A shocking number of states have discovered that groups claiming to support the Native American community’s voice at the polls have engaged in blatantly illegal bribery and vote incentivizing with cash cards, gas cards, electronics and other items,” the brief said according to the op-ed. “This scandal appears to have been rampant in Nevada.”
“Posts on the Nevada Native Vote Project Facebook page show that similar raffles were conducted in 15 Nevada native communities, with 116 voters receiving $6,650 in cash prizes,” the campaign added.
Jacqueline De León, a staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund, told KNPR that “a lot of their claims are unsubstantiated.”
“I think that this lawsuit is a little bit reckless,” De León said. “It’s sort of just casting a wide net of disparagement on the Nevada Native Vote Project.”
“Even if the advertisement seems to imply that you needed to have an ‘I Vote’ sticker, what really ultimately matters is whether or not the event was open to everybody,” she added. “If the event was open to everybody then it’s not illegal.”
The Nevada lawsuit is one of several filed by the Trump campaign alleging voter fraud and seeking to overturn the election results. A federal judge dismissed the campaign’s lawsuit in Pennsylvania November 21, and a Wisconsin Supreme Court recently refused to hear a lawsuit filed by the campaign.
