An impatient Nevada judge on Tuesday threw out a lawsuit by Donald Trump's legal team over early voting, saying their action was premature and questioning whether they understand basic law.
"This is not how it works," Clark County Judge Gloria Sturman said in dismissing the suit filed late Monday by Trump's lawyers. They had argued that Clark County polling sites were kept open two hours late on Friday night. Officials have said that was done to guarantee people already in line would be able to vote.
The judge had little to say about that but informed the Trump team that the county was already required to preserve ballots.
"I can't obligate him to do something that he's already obligated to do," said the judge.
"There has been a failure to exhaust administrative remedies," she said, adding that Trump's team needed to first go to the Secretary of State's office, file integrity complaints and let that process play out before returning to the court.
Sturman repeatedly asked Trump's lawyer, Brian Hardy, and his team why they were in her courtroom, pointing out - as the registrar had - that the law already requires them to preserve all the ballots.
At one point, Hardy seemed to ask the judge for permission to get the names of people who were working the poll sites.
"Why would I order them to make available to you information about people who work at polls when it's not already a public requirement to do so," she said. "So that those people can be harassed for doing their civic duty?"
When Trump's team suggested they would make sure people were not subjected to harassment, Sturman was skeptical.
"Do you watch Twitter?" she asked. "Do you watch cable news?"
At one point, Trump's lawyers seemed to suggest that they wanted access to the actual ballots, which would allow them to see who voted when. They also wanted access to names of who worked at each polling site.
This did not sit well with the judge.
"What are you saying?" she asked. "Why are we here? You want to preserve the poll data? That is offensive to me. Why don't we wait to see if the secretary of state wants to do this?"
"We need to preserve evidence, your honor, and the party that has that evidence is Clark County," Hardy said.
"I'm just really puzzled by how you think you're going to use this evidence anyway." Sturman said.
Sturman seemed to finally lose patience and told Trump's lawyer to sit down.
"Great," Clark County government tweeted after the judge's decision. "We have an election to conduct."
While Trump's lawyers said they would appeal to the state supreme court, Hillary Clinton's team dismissed the action as "frivolous."
The suit followed comments by Nevada GOP chairman Michael McDonald that the polls were kept open to allow "a certain group" to vote.
About 30 percent of voters in Clark County are Latino.
The suit is also seen as allowing the Trump team to have a foundation on which to build a legal challenge if they don't like the results in Nevada.
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