(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) The state of Nevada said it had identified technical issues that led to errors appearing in online voter histories, leading some to wonder if longstanding suspicions about rampant mail-in ballot abuse in the state had inadvertently been confirmed.
Statement from the Secretary of State’s Office: pic.twitter.com/KTFZuaPBjt
— NV Sec of State (@NVSOS) February 20, 2024
Las Vegas resident Daphne Lee, a Republican, told the Review–Journal that she checked online after hearing about the issue and found that her entire family’s mail-in ballots had been reported as counted in the state’s recent GOP primary, although none had participated.
Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar’s office released a statement Sunday admitting to the mistakes, KRNV reported.
According to the statement, officials “became aware of possible technical issues related to the vote history of individuals who did not participate in the Presidential Preference Primary.”
Many Nevadans opted instead to participate in the GOP caucus, which was officially recognized as the state’s nominating contest by the Republican National Committee and frontrunner Donald Trump. The primary, which took place two days prior, notably resulted in a decisive win for “none of these candidates” over runner-up Nikki Haley.
A spokesman for the Nevada secretary of state’s office blamed the reporting errors on individual counties still working to change over to new systems.
“The legacy systems used by a number of the counties require additional steps be taken to ensure that voters who did not return their ballot do not have vote history; some of those steps were not taken, which resulted in inaccurate data,” the spokesman said.
Aguilar’s office released an updated statement Monday night, expressing confidence that the erroneous voter history errors would be resolved soon.
According to the updated statement, the mistakes had no bearing on the recent election results.
“It is important to note that vote history is generated separately from election results,” the statement said. “Results on SilverStateElection.NV.gov and county canvasses of the votes are unaffected and accurate.”
The state planned to work overtime leading up to the June primaries in order to “remove the need for these outdated processes,” it added.
Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, a Republican, also blamed county-level officials for not adapting quickly enough to the latest ballot-counting innovations.
He noted that the secretary of state’s office was “working diligently to resolve the issue with their website.”
Naturally, Republicans, who have gotten the short shrift in the state in the past, were worried by the “irregularities” heading into the consequential 2024 election.
“We take these reports very seriously,” Nevada GOP Chairman Michael McDonald wrote in a statement addressing the ongoing issues.
“The cornerstone of our Republic is the trust and confidence of the American people in the electoral process,” McDonald added. “Any indication of irregularities must be thoroughly investigated to ensure the integrity of our elections.”
Prior to Lombardo’s election, while under Democrat control, Nevada passed one of the most expansive mail-in voting plans of all the states ahead of the 2020 election.
Not only did the state automatically send ballots to all active voters on its rolls, but it also permitted controversial ballot harvesting that permitted third parties to collect and return multiple ballots.
The rules assured that Clark County—home to Las Vegas and by far the largest and most corrupt of all the Nevada counties—had the power to effectively decide its statewide elections.
However, as the county’s former sheriff, Lombardo was able to prevail in 2022, ushering in hope that he could reform its shady election system and make the Silver State, once lorded over by corrupt Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, competitive once more for Republicans.
According to recent polling averages, Trump currently enjoys a commanding lead of 7 percentage points over Democrat President Joe Biden in the state.
However, Republican senatorial candidate Adam Laxalt was likewise running comfortably ahead of incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto in the 2022 midterms, only to find his razor-thin Election Day victory overturned by late-arriving mail-in ballots.
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
