LAS VEGAS (KLAS) -- — Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar is apologizing for errors on a state website that told some voters they had cast a mail ballot in the recent presidential preference primary when they had not.
"As Nevada's chief officer of elections, I would like to apologize to voters for this weekend's confusion," Aguilar said in a statement released on Thursday. "No voter should ever look at the Secretary of State's website and see inaccurate information. This was a technical error that should not have happened, resulting from a patchwork, bottom-up voter registration system that has long needed to be replaced."
In a memo that accompanied Aguilar's statement, officials from his office explained that a code sent by various counties to the state's computers was misinterpreted to indicate that voters had sent in their mail ballot when, in fact, they had merely been sent a mail ballot under the state's universal voting law.
According to the memo, a computer code — the letters "MB" — meant to indicate that a voter had been sent a mail ballot before the Feb. 6 presidential preference primary was misread by state systems after the results of the elections were canvassed 10 days later.
"Before the 10th day, after an election, counties marked any voters who had been sent a mail ballot with the code 'MB' — after this date, the system interprets the 'MB' code as a Mail Ballot Counted," the memo reads.
"In order to ensure the accuracy of the voter file, counties worked with their internal teams and election management vendors to identify a way to remove the 'MB' code from voters who were sent a mail ballot but did not return it, surrender it, or vote by another method," the memo added. "Once that 'clean up' step was taken at the county level, the 'canvass' code would run at the state level and voters would see their vote history updated appropriately."
The mistake didn't stop some people from implying that voter fraud had occurred in the presidential primary election. The Nevada Republican Party said it was launching an investigation. However, Aguilar's staff said the mistake was only the result of the computer error.
"It is important to note that at no time were election results affected by this issue nor any voter Personally Identifiable Information (PII) compromised," the memo reads. "The voter registration and election systems are kept separate. Additionally, at no point was any county data inaccurate. Any claims to the contrary are false."
It's unlikely that the error will be repeated in the future, since the state is switching to a so-called "top down" voter registration system. In the current system, county elections officials maintain voter information and feed it up to the state, which posts it online. That's where the mistakes that occurred after the primary took place.
But under a law passed with unanimous support in the Legislature in 2021, the state is switching to a "top down" system, where the state will maintain voter registration information.
"This will take the potential for issues related to data conversion out of the process entirely, while also allowing the state to spot check data and assist counties with troubleshooting," the state memo reads.
That system will be in place before the June primary, officials said.
