With Nevada’s presidential preference primaries less than a month away, the state’s top election official and law enforcement officer on Wednesday highlighted new steps state officials are taking to tighten security for the 2024 election as well as for the workers who help administer it.
Speaking from the Clark County Election Department warehouse in North Las Vegas, Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar and Attorney General Aaron Ford both affirmed their respective offices were committed to conducting an “accessible, safe and secure” cycle that will officially begin with the Feb. 6 Democratic and Republican party presidential preference primaries.
Mail-in ballots will begin arriving in the coming weeks, and the early voting period for the primaries begins Jan. 27. That’s in addition to two other elections being administered by the state this year: A June 11 primary for statewide office and congressional races, and the Nov. 5 general election, each with their own periods for early and mail voting.
“The safety and security of each (election) is of great responsibility and not something the attorney general or I take lightly,” Aguilar said. “Our state runs some of the most accessible, secure elections in the country. This is possible thanks to the hard-working election officials that have been working tirelessly to prepare and the poll workers that are gearing up to help make these elections happen.”
Appropriations granted to Aguilar’s office from the Nevada Legislature during the 2023 session made it possible for the secretary of state’s office to hire two full-time civil investigators and one full-time criminal investigator, Aguilar said, adding those investigators would be focused solely on election security.
Additionally, Aguilar’s office has also established a cybersecurity division as well as a task force comprised of representatives from Ford’s office and federal, state and local police agencies to bolster communication to better respond to election complaints. Those have surged since 2022, Aguilar said, amid unfounded claims by former President Donald Trump and his allies questioning the legitimacy of the vote in Nevada and in other states.
“There is no evidence of widespread fraud in Nevada or anywhere else,” said Aguilar, a Democrat. “That has been true under Democratic secretaries and under Republican secretaries. … This collaboration ensures that there are clear lines of communication and that any response to an election issue will be strategic.”
Ford said the state’s law enforcement officers would be on the ground throughout early voting periods and on Election Day responding to complaints in real-time and that for the 2024 cycle his office did not expect widespread voter fraud.
“Let me be clear: The 2024 elections will be free, fair and safe,” Ford said. “Our officers will be putting in the work so that Nevadans can be sure that their votes and their rights are protected.”
Ford also promised that his office takes allegations of voter fraud seriously and urged the public to report any instances of perceived voter fraud.
“We will investigate, and if the allegations have merit, we will prosecute,” Ford said.
During the 2022 cycle, Aguilar’s office received approximately 698 so-called election integrity violation reports, of which four have been forwarded to the attorney general’s office for further investigation, and 84% (587 cases) found no violations whatsoever.
Aguilar said his office even received reports that preceded potential violations, either out of lack of understanding surrounding state election law or attempts to “overwhelm our office with unfounded allegations.”
“Regardless, we will investigate each report to the best of our ability and to make sure that our elections are secure,” Aguilar said.
Aguilar’s office was also successful in getting a bill signed into law to make it a crime to threaten or harass election workers. In spite of that, Aguilar said Wednesday all of the state’s 17 counties were in dire need of poll workers and other election administration positions, largely after a glut of resignations and turnover Aguilar said could be attributed to the rise in harassment and threats that coincided with false claims of election fraud.
In Douglas County, Aguilar said the county clerk had only been able to hire about 60 election workers for the upcoming primary — about half of what the county has used in past elections. Aguilar and Ford’s are working on finalizing a program allowing lawyers to earn their continuing education credit mandated by the state bar if they volunteered as a poll worker.
“Our nurses stepped up during COVID — it’s time for lawyers to step up during a time of need when democracy is at issue,” Aguilar said.
Whether that will translate to a sufficient number of poll workers, Aguilar and Ford said they’re unsure, but it is at least a step in the right direction, the two insisted.
“Disagreements are no excuse to bring violence or harassment into the electoral process,” Aguilar said. “That’s not how a democracy works.”