It’s unclear how widespread the issue is, but appears to affect the voting history of people who did not participate in February’s presidential primary.
By Tabitha Mueller, The Nevada Independent, February 19th, 2024
The Nevada Secretary of State’s Office is addressing “technical issues” that have resulted in inaccurate voter records online, but officials said the errors did not affect the results of the presidential primary election.
Spokeswoman Cecilia Heston said in an emailed statement on Monday that the secretary of state’s office became aware of the problem Sunday. It’s unclear how widespread the issue is, but it appears to be related to the voting history of people who did not participate in this month’s presidential primary.
“Elections and IT staff began working on the issue immediately and met with County Clerks and Registrars this morning,” she wrote. “We are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible and will provide further updates as we can.”
Heston added that vote history is generated separately from election results, and the results on the state’s election website and county canvasses of the votes are “unaffected and accurate.”
Data from the secretary of state’s website indicates the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries saw record-high turnout, with more than 133,000 votes cast in the Democratic primary, representing a nearly 63 percent turnout for the party, and more than 79,000 in the Republican primary, or a 37 percent turnout rate.
Congressional District 3 candidate Elizabeth Helgelien posted on X, formerly Twitter, that the problem is evidence of fraud taking place in Nevada, but did not explain how the issue constituted voter fraud.
Shortly after the news broke about the technical issues, the Nevada GOP issued a statement noting the party had received complaints from people who did not vote in the primary but received notification that their mail ballots were counted. The party said it would investigate “alleged irregularities in mail-in ballot counting” and is communicating with the secretary of state’s office.
“These reports have raised serious questions about the security of the complex process of tabulating mail-in ballots in Nevada that needs to be addressed prior to the June Primary and November General Election,” the party wrote.
Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar and Attorney General Aaron Ford, who are Democrats, have reiterated that Nevada’s election processes are secure and that there are safeguards in place to prevent voter fraud, including procedures to investigate reports of potential voter fraud.
“Our state runs some of the most accessible, secure elections in the country,” Aguilar said in a January press conference ahead of the primary.
The issues arrive as the state is moving to a new top-down centralized state elections database instead of a bottom-up system where individual counties report to the state, a change Aguilar has said is vital.
“We need to have that [top-down system] in place by 2024 because it leads to other efficiencies in the flow and process of elections,” Aguilar said in an interview last year.