Nevada refuses to help feds find noncitizen voters

The Nevada secretary of state will not assist federal officials who are trying to weed out noncitizen voters this election season.

Democrat Cisco Aguilar told The Center Square on Tuesday evening that his office would not cooperate with the Trump administration’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, citing fears over accuracy.

“Nevada election officials, at the state and local level, take the responsibility of maintaining accurate voter rolls very seriously, and follow federal and state laws to ensure our elections are accurate, fair and secure,” Aguilar said in an email to The Center Square on Tuesday evening. “It’s a felony for those ineligible to knowingly register and vote in Nevada. Any claims of a widespread problem are false and only create distrust in our elections.”

The decision by Aguilar’s office comes a day after U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service Director Joseph B. Edlow sent a letter asking for the Democrat to lend a helping hand in bolstering voter verification.

In his letter, Edlow cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to stay a lower court order, which allowed the program to be restored for all users, as a key reason why Aguilar’s participation was so important.

“SAVE has streamlined processes, reduced administrative burdens, and expanded free access to federal sources of information that had not been previously available,” Edlow’s letter reads. “States that have used the enhanced SAVE capabilities have reported significant improvements in the efficiency of processing verification queries associated with voter registration records.”

The Center Square reached out to party leaders in both the state House and Senate, as well as to Aguilar’s election opponent on Nov. 3, Republican Jim Marchant, but did not receive a response from any of them.

Trial and error

So far, 26 states have joined President Trump’s SAVE program, including Florida and Texas, while others have policies in place that mirror it while not formally linking up.

Nevada requires voters to confirm their citizenship. Noncitizen voting is a misdemeanor offense, as a 44-year-old Filipino woman found out this week when she was one of 48 noncitizens across five states who were charged with election-related crimes. If convicted, the woman faces up to one year of imprisonment or a fine of $100,000 or both.

Aguilar’s decision comes after reports have come out about some SAVE-related errors across states that implemented the program.

In Missouri, for instance, hundreds of eligible voters were mistakenly labeled as noncitizens, while a coalition of voting and minority rights groups have sued Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson and multiple county election officials over possible discrimination against naturalized citizens, according to ProPublica.

Aguilar, the first-term Democratic secretary of state, cited those errors in his comments to The Center Square, saying the potential for chaos outranks any potential benefits for the Silver State.

“As Nevada’s Chief Elections Officer, it’s my job to make sure we follow the law and also to make sure every eligible voter in Nevada can exercise their freedom to vote without discriminatory barriers or intimidation,” Aguilar said. “We cannot and will not risk violating someone’s Constitutional right to vote."