Suit: Nevada Elections Chief Fails To Maintain Voter Rolls After Data Suggested ‘Thousands’ Of Noncitizens Voted In 2020
Democrat Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar’s failure to fulfill his legally mandated responsibility to clean Nevada’s voter rolls has potentially allowed “thousands” of noncitizens who data suggested voted in 2020 to remain registered to vote, a legal challenge filed Wednesday alleges.
Brought by the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee, the Nevada GOP, and a state resident, the lawsuit contends that Aguilar is “violating his statutory duties to ensure that only citizens are registered to vote.” Aguilar, the Democratic National Committee, and the Nevada Democratic Party are listed as defendants in the case.
“Nevada’s elections should be a reflection of its citizens’ voices, not influenced by non-citizens who have no legal standing to participate,” Nevada GOP Chair Michael McDonald said in a Thursday statement regarding the lawsuit. “Any efforts to allow non-citizens to vote threatens the very foundation of our elections and diminishes the power of lawful voters across our state.”
Plaintiffs contend the Nevada secretary of state “has not adopted any rules or regulations that provide for verification of a voter’s citizenship, or systematic removal of noncitizens from the voter rolls,” as state law requires. They further claim that data raised in litigation concerning the 2020 election in Nevada shows that “3,987 individuals listed in the DMV noncitizen file cast a ballot in the 2020 general election.”
That figure appears to stem from a sworn affidavit filed by former RNC Chief Data Officer Jesse Kamzol in a 2020 election case. As originally described in the Epoch Times, Kamzol “matched the 110,164 non-citizen records from the DMV, which were obtained through a subpoena by the state’s Republican Party, against Nevada’s voter file … [and] determined, with ‘high to mid-high confidence,’ that 6,260 non-citizens were registered to vote and 3,987 non-citizens had voted” in the Silver State’s 2020 contest.
“Birth dates were not provided on the DMV file and name suffix (JR/SR/etc.) presence appeared to be inconsistent, so false positive matches of like-named family/household members are possible within these matches; however and again, these are all high to mid-high confidence matches that are reliable and merit further investigation,” Kamzol wrote in the affidavit.
The GOP submitted what it contended was evidence for the claim and other allegations of “fraudulent votes” in the state’s 2020 contest to the office of then-GOP Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske in early March 2021, according to The Nevada Independent.
Cegavske’s office responded to Republicans’ allegations, including those related to potential noncitizens voting, in an April 2021 report. Officials claimed they retraced the GOP’s steps by requesting “a spreadsheet of individuals who presented an immigration document while obtaining a drivers’ license over the last 5 years” from the state DMV, which reportedly “included a total of 110,163 individuals.”
The report noted that 5,320 of those individuals “were identified as active registered voters” and 4,057 of those active registered voters “had a vote history from the 2020 general election.” However, as described in plaintiffs’ Wednesday lawsuit, Cegavske “nevertheless dismissed these reports based upon speculation that some unknown number of individuals may have been naturalized between the date of their DMV transaction and the 2020 general election.”
“Without specific evidence to establish that identified individuals were foreign nationals when they voted in the November 3 election, there is nothing further that can be investigated,” Cegavske’s report reads. “In summary, the generalized information acquired from DMV cannot serve as a basis for an investigation into alleged voter fraud.”
When pressed for comment on the allegations brought by Republicans and the Trump campaign, a spokeswoman for Secretary Aguilar told The Federalist, “Only United States citizens are eligible to vote in Nevada’s elections” and “[t]here are already numerous safeguards in place to prevent noncitizens, or anyone ineligible to vote, from casting a ballot.”
“Any claims of a widespread problem are false and only create distrust in our elections,” she said. “The Secretary of State’s Office is focused on running successful, safe and fair elections on behalf of the voters.”
Plaintiffs asked Nevada’s First District Court to issue a permanent injunction requiring Aguilar to “implement and conduct systematic and routine list maintenance that appropriately verifies that registered voters are U.S. citizens” and a preliminary injunction mandating the secretary to complete such actions before the November election. They also requested a declaratory judgment be issued stipulating that state law requires the Nevada secretary of state to fulfill these duties.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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