Nevada SOS Issues Apology for ‘Glitch’ in Presidential Primary

Prior to his public address this morning to the Joint Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections, Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar issued a written apology for the “glitch” in the Presidential Preference Primary.

His apology reads:

“As Nevada’s chief officer of elections, I would like to apologize to voters for this weekend’s confusion. No voter should ever look at the Secretary of State’s website and see inaccurate information. This was a technical error that should not have happened, resulting from a patchwork, bottom-up voter registration system that has long needed to be replaced. I have made it a priority to modernize our system and bring the Voter Registration and Elections Management System (VREMS) online before the June 2024 primary election. 

Nevada has a long history of secure, fair, and accessible elections and I am proud to continue that work. I want to be clear that this issue had nothing to do with the tabulation of votes or results of any election.  There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in our state, now or ever. Voters should have absolute confidence in the entire election process. 

I would like to thank the entire team at the Secretary of State’s office, as well as the county clerks, registrars, and other county staff members who responded to this issue with necessary urgency.”

A memo (see below) was prepared for Secretary Aguilar by Chief Deputy Gabriel Di Chiara and Deputy for Elections Mark Wlaschin, and was “provided in the interest of transparency.”

The memo concludes, “As the election management and voter registration systems are kept separately, and both are currently controlled by the counties, it is impossible for the state to know who actually voted in the election and who did not. As such, inaccurate data would be indistinguishable from accurate data, and the state was unable to pre-emptively identify that there was an issue.”

The memo further explains that the implementation and launch of top-down Voter Management System (VREMS) will “take the potential for issues related to data conversion out of the process entirely, while also allowing the state to spot check data and assist counties with troubleshooting. Due to your focus on this subject, and the governor’s decision to include $30 million in one-shot dollars for the VREMS project, our new system will go live before the June 2024 primary election. There is no substitute for a top -down system, and with the support of the counties the VREMS system will alleviate these concerns and many more.”

During the interim legislative hearing today, the Secretary of State’s office identified that the VREMS system will be tested by the special recall election for the Palomino Valley General Improvement District and a subsequent mock election, conducted by the state, in March.

According to Nevada statute, the public is allowed to view the above tests prior to the implementation of the VREMS system by the June 2024 primary election.