What has been called a glitch in Nevada’s elections system is being blamed for voters being told they cast ballots in the state’s presidential primary when they did not.
The Nevada Republican Party said it was informed by voters who did not vote that their election record said “mail ballot counted,” according to KTNV-TV.
“In response to these alarming reports, the Nevada Republican Party legal team has taken swift action to address the situation,” the party’s statement said.
“The NVGOP is actively engaged in communication with the Secretary of State’s Office to conduct a thorough investigation into these alleged irregularities. It is imperative that the integrity of the electoral process is upheld and that every legitimate vote is accurately accounted for,” the statement said.
Republican Daphne Lee of Las Vegas said she and her family’s mail-in ballots were counted for the primary, even though none of them voted, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
She said that when she tried to refuse future mail-in ballots, the computer system told her she was not registered and her voting history did not exist.
“It’s just so frustrating,” Lee said. “This makes everyone uncomfortable.”
“We take these reports very seriously,” Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald said.
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“The cornerstone of our Republic is the trust and confidence of the American people in the electoral process. Any indication of irregularities must be thoroughly investigated to ensure the integrity of our elections,” he said.
BREAKING: A technical issue was causing primary mail-in ballots across Nevada to show as counted when voters had not mailed their ballots or voted at all.
Several people reported though they never voted by mail or voted in the primary at all, the state’s online system showed… pic.twitter.com/AvQb2AFaMA
— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) February 19, 2024
The Office of the Secretary of State said there was a problem in data uploaded from counties to the state database.
“After working closely with Nevada’s county clerks, registrars, and their IT staff, the Nevada Secretary of State’s office is confident that all issues related to erroneous vote history have been identified and fixes are in progress,” a statement from the Nevada Secretary of State’s office said, according to KVVU-TV.
“The issue was as follows: On a nightly basis, each county uploads their voter registration data to the Secretary of State’s database, which executes code to create the single statewide voter registration file that users see when they log into vote.nv.gov,” the statement said.
“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 statement said.
The Monday statement said the issue should be resolved within 48 hours.
The statement said that although voter records were in error, the vote totals from the primary were not impacted.
“Again, this is an error that relates to the code used for when a voter is sent a mail ballot and does not return it; it has no connection in any way to vote tabulation. The top-down Voter Registration and Election Management System (VREMS) project at the Secretary of State’s office will go live prior to the June 2024 election, and remove the need for these outdated processes,” the statement said.
