Nevada election officials have rejected claims by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that hundreds of noncitizens were improperly registered to vote in the state, marking the latest setback in efforts to substantiate allegations of widespread voter fraud. The dispute centers on lists provided by DHS last month, including one naming 185 individuals purportedly found to be noncitizens eligible to vote. Nevada authorities have determined that all those named are lawful citizens.
In a letter obtained through public records, Greg D. Ott, a deputy attorney general for Nevada, asserted that DHS had failed to supply sufficient evidence supporting their assertions. He noted that records held by the state affirm the citizenship of each individual on the smaller list and criticized the federal agency for not providing comprehensive data for deeper analysis. Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar echoed these concerns, characterizing DHS’s effort as an unsupported attempt to intimidate election officials and deter voters.
The controversy dates back to July, when President Donald Trump and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced they had identified more than 270,000 noncitizens registered to vote across four states—Nevada, California, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Although both leaders initially framed these figures as definitive, subsequent communications tempered the claims, suggesting that “there may be as many as” the reported numbers without offering concrete evidence.
In Nevada specifically, DHS initially claimed there were as many as 15,903 noncitizens on voter rolls. However, during a virtual meeting last month between Nevada officials and DHS representatives, department leaders acknowledged that their initial figures were unverified. Kimberley Vogt, a DHS official involved in the review, clarified that while some manual examination had occurred, a full review of all cases had not been completed. She further noted in correspondence after the meeting that only a subset of 185 individuals had undergone manual verification as noncitizens.
Nevada election officials now dispute even those 185 cases, stating their records confirm all are citizens. They also challenged DHS’s assertion that they had provided lists of nearly 16,000 suspected noncitizen voters, noting that a list of that size was never furnished. Instead, Nevada received a partial list of roughly 6,000 entries identified only by “voter case numbers,” which officials criticized as insufficient for meaningful verification. The state highlighted that these numbers alone cannot reliably correlate to individuals due to recent changes in their voter registration systems and lack of additional identifying data such as names or dates of birth.
DHS responded by describing the 6,218 individuals sent to Nevada as those with the “highest number of matching attributes” indicating potential noncitizenship. The agency further asserted that Nevada requested a smaller subset to begin their review, a claim Nevada officials dispute. The disagreement underscores ongoing tensions between federal and state authorities regarding election oversight and data sharing practices.
The broader investigation into alleged noncitizen voting is part of a wider push by the Trump administration to identify voter fraud nationwide, involving hundreds of Homeland Security agents temporarily reassigned to this task. However, the methodology has been met with skepticism from Democrats and voting rights advocates, who argue the approach is flawed and may violate legal protections. The attorney general of Virginia has also sought further details on the federal inquiry, highlighting concerns about its scope and implications.