Republican running to control Nevada elections endorsed by Trump favorite Mike Lindell

Jim Marchant, a top contender for the GOP nomination for Nevada secretary of state, announced on Thursday that he’s been endorsed by one of the leading election conspiracy theorists in the country.

If elected, Marchant, a former Nevada state representative who is one of a number of 2020 election deniers seeking secretary of state positions across the country, would be in charge of running Nevada’s elections.

Marchant announced the endorsement of Mike Lindell, the Donald Trump supporter, Republican donor, and CEO of the MyPillow bedding company who says he has spent $35 million of his own money in the past year on a quest to overturn the 2020 election by spreading the lie that the election was stolen from Trump along with wild conspiracy theories to back it up.

Marchant was involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election by claiming falsely to be an “alternate elector” for Nevada, part of Republican plotting to subvert the actual results of the election and install Trump for a second term that he did not win.

In January, Marchant accused billionaire philanthropist and donor to progressive causes George Soros and his “cabal” of accomplices of running a yearslong scheme that culminated in stealing the 2020 election from Trump, repeating a baseless and antisemitic conspiracy theory about Soros, who is Jewish and a favorite punching bag for the right.

“In 2004, the Democrats — specifically George Soros, Harry Reid, and others of their ilk — hatched a plan, called the Secretaries of State Project, and it was designed to get progressive liberal secretaries of states elected in all the key swing states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, and they succeeded,” Marchant said in a Jan. 19 interview with radio host Eddie Floyd.

“And the election of 2020 is a direct result of that plan,” Marchant added. “That’s why George Soros, Harry Reid, and the cabal — they understood how important the secretary of state races were.”

If elected, the website Nevada Current last month reported Marchant said, he would change election laws, including moving to “paper ballots” and banning software supplied by the company Dominion Voting Systems. Trump supporters falsely accused Dominion of stealing the 2020 election, and Dominion and some of its employees have sued a number of them, including Lindell, for defamation.

Marchant also said that he wants to get rid of the Electronic Registration Information Center, an electronic voter database of 30 states and the District of Columbia that helps its members maintain their voter rolls. That database has been the target of right-wing smears about its purpose, and earlier this year Louisiana Republican Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin announced the state’s withdrawal from the service.

During a GOP secretary of state primary debate in February, Marchant continued his attack against the elections system, telling the audience, “Your vote hasn’t counted for decades. You haven’t elected anybody. The people that are in office have been selected. You haven’t had a choice.” He also said he would not have certified President Joe Biden’s victory in Nevada.

Democrats have warned of the consequences of a Marchant victory in November.

“In Nevada, the leading Republican candidate for our secretary of state stated that he would have refused, I repeat, would have refused to certify President Biden’s victory in our state, even though the results were certified by a Republican secretary of state and unanimously upheld by the Nevada Supreme Court,” Nevada Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen said in a January speech about voting rights on the Senate floor. “That same candidate opened the door to certifying alternate, alternate electors in future presidential elections in Nevada, contrary to the actual election results.”

The Nevada Globe, a website that is part of right-wing figure Ken Kurson’s Sea of Reeds Media network, reported that Marchant responded to Rosen’s comments:

On January 19th, 2022, U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen from Nevada attacked me on the floor of the U.S. Senate. The Democrats, DeepState, RINOS are scared to death that I will be elected the next Secretary of State for Nevada. They know their election fraud gig will be up. They know that when I am the Secretary of State the citizens of Nevada will finally have a say in who their elected officials will be. It has been decades since we the people have decided who our elected officials are. That ends when I am sworn in as the next Secretary of State of Nevada.

Marchant, who is one of a number of Republicans running for secretary of state in Nevada who have pushed election conspiracies, is a Trump supporter who lost a bid for Congress in 2020, when he was defeated by Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford by 5 points. Marchant was endorsed by Trump in that contest.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.