Nevada’s Mail Ballots Shipped to Scandal-Plagued Arizona Firm for Election ‘Processing’

A stunning investigation has exposed a major breach in election security: Clark County’s mail-in ballots from Nevada were outsourced to Runbeck Election Services’ facility in Maricopa County, Arizona, where they were allegedly commingled with Arizona ballots (and other western states) in an unsecured warehouse devoid of proper oversight. 

Problemos in Nevada, too.

Why were NEVADA ballots sent to a third party in ARIZONA for processing? https://t.co/WfHVrTEafE pic.twitter.com/lQibbKivCw

— Megan Barth (@ReaganBabe) March 10, 2026

This cross-state handoff not only caused damaging delays in Clark County tabulations but appears to have violated the fundamental chain of custody—the unbreakable documented trail that safeguards ballots from voter hand to official count.

Chain of custody is non-negotiable in secure elections. Nevada statutes (NRS Chapter 293 and related NAC regulations) require rigorous logging of every ballot transfer: who handles them, timestamps, locations, conditions, and tamper-evident seals. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission stresses bipartisan witnesses, no unsupervised access, and continuous accountability to prevent tampering, addition, or substitution. When ballots are shipped out-of-state to a private vendor like Runbeck, direct county control evaporates. Oversight shifts to non-government employees without Clark County officials, law enforcement, or bipartisan monitors present during critical phases violates state and federal law.

According to a damning memo from House Administration Committee observers, including a Republican staffer and a Democratic colleague, Runbeck’s Maricopa facility was a veritable Wild West of ballot handling.

Completed mail-in ballots from Nevada were stored in the same room as blank ballots—not just from Arizona, but potentially from other Western states like Colorado, California, and Utah. Pallets of blank ballots sat unattended with ripped wrapping, suggesting easy access for tampering.

Worse, Nevada’s ballots were sidelined while Arizona’s were prioritized, causing critical delays in Clark County’s tabulation on Wednesday and Thursday post-Election Day. “This may explain the delay in Nevada posting any new tabulated totals,” the staffer wrote, highlighting how Nevada ballots languished awaiting sorting and signature verification at Runbeck.

Congressional observers’ memo details the nightmare:  No Nevada election officials or independent watchers were on site at the Runbeck facility. This creates systemic vulnerabilities: ballots could be altered, swapped, or injected without detection or traceability.

Runbeck’s sordid history only heightens the alarm.

In 2022, Maricopa’s Election Day printer failures rejected thousands of ballots and claims of improper ballot insertions by staff sparked widespread fraud allegations (though later dismissed in court). Kari Lake’s legal efforts highlighted chain-of-custody lapses involving hundreds of thousands of mail ballots. Recent reports note unfulfilled promises of enhanced monitoring like cameras and observer access.

The lack of oversight is staggering: No state election officials, law enforcement, or bipartisan observers were present during ballot processing. Runbeck’s own promises of upgraded monitoring—cameras, observer rooms, and live feeds—went unfulfilled, despite CEO Jeff Ellington’s assurances. This isn’t just incompetence; it’s a recipe for disaster.

As Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-AZ) detailed in his June 2025 letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, demanding a DOJ probe: “The commingling of blank ballots with live ballots poses a significant risk to the accuracy and fairness of election results.” Hamadeh’s call came amid reports of boxes of printed blanks from multiple states mixed with voted ballots, raising “serious questions about the security and integrity of the election process.”

This outsourcing fiasco stems directly from Nevada Democrats’ pandemic-era power grab.

With a legislative supermajority in 2020, Democrats ushered in sweeping changing to Nevada’s election laws: mandating universal mail ballots, permitting UNLIMITED, non-family ballot harvesting, relaxing postmark requirements, and diluting signature verification. Made permanent in 2021 over GOP objections, these changes—six major expansions since 2020 per the Brennan Center—prioritized “voter access” over security. As chronicled in my Nevada Globe reporting, lawsuits forced purges of over 100,000 inactive voters and commercial addresses, exposed Indian reservation voter registration drives, and challenged the Nevada Supreme Court’s ruling allowing undated ballots to count days after Election Day.

To uncover the full extent of this outsourcing, the California Globe has filed an open records request with the Clark County Elections Department under the Nevada Public Records Act (NRS Chapter 239). We seek all contracts, agreements, scopes of work, amendments, and related documents with Runbeck Election Services from 2020 to present; the number of Clark County ballots processed by Runbeck per election cycle (broken down by type); and detailed descriptions of services performed—printing, sorting, signature verification preparation, storage, or other handling—along with any timelines, delays, or custody logs.

How many ballots from Democrat-led Clark County—home to most of Nevada’s population—were routed through this troubled Arizona site? What exact services did Runbeck provide, and how was chain of custody maintained across state lines?

Nevada voters deserve equivalent scrutiny. Why outsource to a facility plagued by documented issues? Why no ironclad chain-of-custody enforcement?

This isn’t inefficiency—it’s a potential systemic violation of election fundamentals. Democrats’ expansions set the stage; Runbeck’s involvement may have shattered the chain. Without immediate transparency, audits, and reforms, trust in our elections will collapse further. Nevadans—and all Americans—must demand answers before the midterms.