Nevada Voters Surprised to Find Mail Ballots Counted in Primary Despite Not Voting

A wave of confusion and concern washed over Nevada voters this weekend when many discovered that their mail ballots were registered as counted for the February 6 presidential primary despite not having participated.

The 8 News Now reported that these irregularities in voter histories prompted an immediate response from the Secretary of State’s office on Monday.

The issue was first identified on Sunday when voters began noticing discrepancies in their voting records.

“On Sunday, February 18, the Secretary of State’s Office became aware of possible technical issues related to the vote history of individuals who did not participate in the Presidential Preference Primary,” a spokesperson told 8 News Now.

“Elections and IT staff began working on the issue immediately, and met with county clerks and registrars this morning. We are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible, and will provide further updates as we can.”

According to the office, the problem allegedly stemmed from some counties failing to follow the correct procedures for updating their voter registration data.

Each county is responsible for nightly uploads of their voter registration to the state database, which then generates the public voter file on the state website. However, the necessary steps to exclude non-returning mail ballot voters were reportedly missed, resulting in the display of incorrect voting histories.

The Secretary of State’s office assured voters that they are validating new files from each county and updating them as soon as the data’s accuracy is confirmed.

Below is the full statement from the Secretary of State’s office:

“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.

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 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.

Our office has been validating new files from each county and moving them into production as soon as the accuracy of the data is verified. Some counties may not see updates until after the nightly file upload, but if counties have taken the appropriate steps all voter data should be accurate within 48 hours. A comprehensive report will be provided as soon as is practicable.

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.”

According to the Secretary of State’s office, the technical “glitch” does “not affect the outcomes” of the primary election.

It can be recalled, Joe Biden won in the Nevada Democratic presidential primary. On the Republican party, the option “none of these candidates” secured the majority, beating Nikki Haley. Trump subsequently won in the party-endorsed caucus.