The Trump campaign has raised concerns that Nevada is not doing enough to prevent noncitizens from being listed on voter registration rolls in a new lawsuit against the state. In court filings from Thursday, the campaign argued that Democratic Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar should take additional measures to safeguard the integrity of the vote, the Washington Examiner reported.
The Nevada GOP, the Republican National Committee, and a Clark County voter have joined the Trump campaign’s lawsuit against Democratic Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, the Democratic National Committee, and the Nevada Democratic Party. The lawsuit challenges former Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske’s review of alleged voter fraud evidence presented by the Nevada Republican Party following the 2020 election. In 2021, Cegavske concluded she didn’t find “evidentiary support for the contention that the 2020 general election was plagued by widespread voter fraud.” The Trump campaign and its allies are now contending that Cegavske’s findings were based on a flawed interpretation of previous Supreme Court rulings.
The lawsuit also references Harvard University’s Cooperative Election Study, which found that 4% of noncitizen respondents in Nevada claimed to be registered to vote, exceeding the national average of approximately 2.5%. Additionally, the campaign highlighted public court records showing that 8% of one district court’s jury pool reported disqualification due to noncitizenship. The GOP has used this data as evidence in its lawsuit to argue that noncitizens have managed to get onto voter rolls, noting that jury pools are partially drawn from voter registration lists, the Washington Examiner reports.
Aguilar pushed back against the GOP’s claims that he is “failing in his list maintenance and investigatory duties to ensure that only U.S. citizens are registered and voting in Nevada elections.” Furthermore, “There are already numerous safeguards in place to prevent noncitizens, or anyone ineligible to vote, from casting a ballot,” the secretary of state’s office told the Nevada Independent. “Any claims of a widespread problem are false and only create distrust in our elections.”
The RNC and the Nevada GOP recently celebrated the secretary of state’s office after it removed over 76,000 inactive voters from the state’s active voter list in August. “NVGOP & the Trump campaign have taken the lead to ensure election officials follow the law and clean our voter rolls. Thank you @NVSOS for these important updates,” the Nevada GOP praised in a post to X on Wednesday.
Both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have underscored the significance of winning Nevada, which is emerging as a key battleground in the presidential election. Trump most recently visited Nevada in late August, stopping by a Las Vegas restaurant where he engaged with employees and promoted his popular no-tax-on-tips policy. He is scheduled to hold another rally in Las Vegas this Friday evening, the Examiner noted.
Trump narrowly lost Nevada in both his 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. As the state becomes a pivotal focus in the 2024 race, election security has emerged as a prominent issue. The Trump campaign, along with the RNC and the state GOP, is engaged in a legal battle aimed at preventing the counting of mail-in ballots in Nevada that lack a clear postmark and are received several days after Election Day.
