(The Center Square) – The Nevada secretary of state’s office said Monday a coding error that caused “erroneous vote history” is being fixed.
As first reported by 8 News Now, the issue caused mail-in ballots for the primary election to appear as counted even if voters did not mail in their ballots. The vote count was not impacted, the secretary of state’s office said.
“On a nightly basis, each county uploads their voter registration data to the Secretary of State’s database, which executes code to create the single statewide voter registration file that users see when they log into vote.nv.gov,” the secretary of state’s office said in a statement posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “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.”
According to the office, “some of those steps were not taken,” resulting in “inaccurate data.”
“Our office has been validating new files from each county and moving them into production as soon as the accuracy of the data is verified,” the post continued. “Some counties may not see updates until after the nightly file upload, but if counties have taken the appropriate steps all voter data should be accurate within 48 hours.”
The Nevada GOP said Monday that it contacted the secretary of state’s office after receiving reports from registered voters who said they did not return primary mail-in ballots, but got notifications their ballots were received.
“We take these reports very seriously,” Nevada GOP Chairman Michael McDonald said in a statement. “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.”
A report on this issue will come at a date to be determined. Meanwhile, the secretary of state’s office reiterated the issue “has no connection in any way to vote tabulation.”
“Again, this is an error that relates to the code used for when a voter is sent a mail ballot and does not return it…” the post said. “The top-down Voter Registration and Election Management System (VREMS) project at the Secretary of State’s office will go live prior to the June 2024 election and remove the need for these outdated processes.”
