🗳️ SCOTUS throws mail vote into chaos

After months of legal wrangling, the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door to vast restrictions on state-run vote-by-mail systems on Monday – without actually ruling on the legality of such restrictions. Instead, the court’s conservative majority ruled that the states suing over the order lacked standing. It follows an executive order from March of this year that would bar the postal service from delivering absentee ballots to voters not already on an approved list created by the Department of Homeland Security. Though fresh legal challenges to the order are still expected, the move has opened the floodgates just over two months from Election Day. [Associated Press]

• Trump has for years attacked mail ballots, in large part because of debunked 2020 election conspiracies that have nonetheless defined his second term in office. These attacks have not, however, prevented Trump from voting by mail. [NBC News]
• In Nevada, which has run all-mail elections since the pandemic, mail ballots are by law supposed to be mailed out no later than 20 days before the election for in-state voters, and 40-45 days before Election Day for out-of-state voters (namely service members). [ClarkCountyNV.gov]
• USPS has published new rules for how it plans to implement the order, pending a separate court injunction, including demands for new envelopes. But with the first mail ballots for November’s election going out of North Carolina next week, it leaves just days for full implementation and many questions left unanswered. [The Guardian]
• Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, a Democrat, has already criticized USPS over misplaced mail ballots during this year’s primary. Now: "They're going to come in within seven days and build a massive database that has 100% accuracy? It is impossible to implement this system in that time frame." [The Nevada Independent/PBS]
• Meanwhile, even after the Department of Justice appealed a ruling that would have tossed a lawsuit attempting to force Nevada to hand over confidential voter information to the feds, the Trump Administration nonetheless quietly walked back claims that Nevada voter rolls contained upwards of 16,000 noncitizens. [The Nevada Independent]

🍁 More Maple Leaf Blues for Las Vegas?

You may have heard of the impending trade war with Canada (not to be confused with previous trade wars with Canada). With Trump now threatening to rename Lake Ontario, should Vegas worry about another Canadian tourism hit? [Associated Press/Las Vegas Review-Journal]

🧼 Could Money-Laundering Fines Change the Strip?

The Venetian’s lawyer seems to think so. The comments came before the Nevada Gaming Commission last week, ahead of approving a $7.2 million sanction against the resort over alleged anti-money laundering rule violations, the latest in a slew of multi-million dollar penalties for Strip resorts. Others quoted here – from lawyers to regulators to gamblers – are less convinced. [Nevada Current]

💸 Vegas Man Convicted In Crypto Ponzi Scheme

A federal court convicted Brent C. Kovar on Monday on 15 separate charges, including wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering – chiefly tied to lying to investors for four years and pocketing $24 million in the process. Kovar’s company, Profit Connect, had once claimed it was using an AI supercomputer to supercharge cryptocurrency reserves. [KLAS]

💧 Water Street Rises

Five years ago, The Watermark was supposed to be a crown jewel for Henderson’s historic Water Street District, a mixed-used, multi-level blend of apartments and office space. But mounting debt, litigation, and bankruptcy delayed the project – now finally open – into this year. [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

• Still, the area has seen a relative boom over the last few years, anchored by – of all things – an ice skating rink. [KLAS]
• City Cast Las Vegas breaks down whether Water Street can modernize without losing its historic charm [City Cast Las Vegas 🎧]