LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Nevada's secretary of state said it had resolved an error on its website in which voters who did not cast a ballot in the Feb. 6 presidential preference primary were shown as doing so.
The office became aware of the issue on Sunday, and many people took to social media Monday to say their voter records were inaccurate.
On Monday afternoon, the secretary of state's office offered an explanation for how the errors occurred.
"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 office said in a statement.
"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 [computer] code to create the single statewide voter registration file that users see when they log into vote.nv.gov," the statement reads. "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."
The office said it is taking steps to verify information from all 17 Nevada counties, and any errors should be fixed within 48 hours. Officials also said a new system will be in place before the regular primary in June, which will fix the issue that took place on Sunday.
The statement also stressed that the error only affected the vote-reporting database, which is a separate system from the one used to tally votes. The results of Nevada's presidential preference primary are accurate.
A Channel 13 reporter who accessed his own voter information on Monday morning was incorrectly told he was not eligible to vote and that he had no voter history in Clark County, despite voting in nearly every election during the past three decades.
A check of a similar database on the Clark County elections department website, however, showed accurate voter registration and voter history information. Voters can look up their records on that site here.
By Monday evening, a check of the state's website showed the correct information. Anyone can check their voter registration on the state's website at any time.
The Nevada Republican Party issued a statement saying it had received reports from Republicans who had not voted in the Feb. 6 presidential preference primary as having a “mail ballot counted” and vowed to investigate. (The errors on the site, however, appear to be affecting both Democrats and Republicans.)
“In response to these alarming reports, the Nevada Republican Party legal team has taken swift action to address the situation,” the statement reads. “The NVGOP is actively engaged in communication with the Secretary of State's Office to conduct a thorough investigation into these alleged irregularities. It is imperative that the integrity of the electoral process is upheld and that every legitimate vote is accurately accounted for.”
"We take these reports very seriously," stated Michael McDonald, chairman of the Nevada Republican Party. "The cornerstone of our Republic is the trust and confidence of the American people in the electoral process. Any indication of irregularities must be thoroughly investigated to ensure the integrity of our elections."
