Nevada voting raffle targeting Native Americans opens door to Trump legal challenge
Group's site offered chance to win hundreds of dollars in gift cards to those who had proof they voted. Trump campaign argues it was an illegal incentive.
By Daniel Payne
Updated: November 20, 2020 - 11:52pm
A get-out-the-vote effort by a Nevada Native American group included a raffle with cash prizes, opening the door to a legal challenge by the Trump campaign that the incentives ran afoul of federal election law. The group denies that it did anything illegal in the lead-up to the 2020 election.
The Nevada Native Vote Project, a group that seeks to "increase civic participation of the Indigenous populations in Nevada," sponsored a "virtual raffle" during this year's presidential election, according to a post on the group's Facebook page.
The event, sponsored jointly with the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, informed voters that they would be entered in a raffle if they sent in a photograph of themselves with an "I Voted" sticker and/or a "ballot completion form."
Among the prizes in the raffle were four $250 gift cards, four $100 gift cards and eight $25 gift cards, as well as "beadwork, t-shirts & more," the raffle poster advertised.
Subsequent posts from the group showed numerous raffle winners. "Thank you for voting!" some of the posts read.
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https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/nevada-voting-raffle-raises-specter-possible-election-law-violation