The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has faced challenges to its claims that thousands of noncitizens are registered to vote in Nevada's electoral system. These assertions, which were amplified by former President Donald Trump, are now being met with pushback from Nevada officials who state the numbers provided are preliminary and lack sufficient confidence for broad dissemination.
During a July 16 speech, Donald Trump stated that DHS had identified approximately 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in federal elections across the country. He cited documents released by the White House that suggested as many as 16,000 noncitizen voters could be in Nevada's electoral system.
However, Nevada officials contend that DHS has only identified 185 "potential" noncitizen voters in the state's system after manual review, according to reporting by The New York Times. A DHS spokesperson clarified that the list shared with Nevada also included 6,218 additional individuals with the highest number of matching attributes, and that the 16,000 figure represented a "ceiling" of potential noncitizen voters.
Federal officials communicated in emails reviewed by The Times that approximately 14,000 names require further review. The list of noncitizen voters that DHS shared with Nevada is reportedly incomplete and does not contain names, prompting Nevada officials to request additional information.
Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, a Democrat, stated that the numbers provided by DHS were preliminary and that there was "not high enough confidence" to share the full data set. Aguilar emphasized that his office would not risk disenfranchising eligible voters without the highest confidence in their ineligibility.
The dispute over Nevada's numbers raises questions about the total figure of nearly 260,000 noncitizens that DHS claimed are registered to vote nationwide. Similar reviews have indicated potential noncitizen voter registrations in other states, including California, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
Trump's July 16 address characterized the DHS review as a "stunning investigation" revealing the vulnerability of the nation's elections. The White House has suggested that Democratic-led states have hindered efforts by refusing to share voter files, potentially obscuring the true extent of noncitizen voter registration.