Nevada secretary of state asks Trump admin for evidence of noncitizens on voter rolls

Nevada's secretary of state is asking the Trump administration the basis for its recent claims that nearly 16,000 noncitizens could be registered to vote.

In a letter sent Wednesday, Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar (D) kept the door open for collaboration with the federal government to remove noncitizens from Nevada's voter rolls, but also expressed skepticism about the assertions that thousands of noncitizens are voting.

"We remain committed to ensuring that non-citizens are not registered or permitted to vote," the letter says. "At the same time, we are equally committed to protecting eligible U.S. citizens — including naturalized citizens and citizens whose records may be imperfect — from being wrongly labeled as 'non-citizens' or subjected to improper removal efforts."

Wednesday's letter comes two weeks after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it found more than 8,500 Nevada registered voters whose personal information matches a noncitizen in its own files. It also alleged "there may be as many as 15,903 non-citizens registered to vote in Nevada."

At the time, Aguilar, who has pushed back against many of the Trump administration's efforts to interfere in Nevada's elections and obtain voters' personal information, called the claims "wildly speculative."

When registering to vote in Nevada, people must affirm they are a U.S. citizen, and lying about citizenship status is a crime.

In his official response Wednesday, Aguilar asked for detailed information on how the Trump administration reached its conclusions, such as whether it relied on a federal database that has been found to incorrectly flag citizens as noncitizens. A federal judge has blocked the government from using this database — called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE — to verify voter citizenship. 

Aguilar's letter also asks DHS how it matched Nevada's voter files with its own noncitizen databases — raising the possibility that it used AI matching techniques — and whether it conducted any "case-by-case verification to confirm" that a registered voter is a noncitizen.

Still, despite the office's skepticism, Aguilar struck a conciliatory tone in Wednesday's letter.

"Our office is open to good faith collaboration that truly enhances the accuracy of our voter rolls and excludes ineligible non-citizens," it said. "Once we have received and reviewed the requested information, my office will reach out to discuss next steps."

The Trump administration has taken an aggressive approach to root out what it describes as fraud in state-run elections, and many of its efforts — often pursued through executive order — have been struck down in court. 

There is scant evidence of noncitizen voting in Nevada.

Sigal Chattah, the state's top federal prosecutor appointed by Trump, sought an FBI investigation into alleged widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. But the inquiry was closed after investigators found that only 38 noncitizens may have voted that year in Nevada. 

In 2017, the state found only three noncitizens in Clark County had voted in the 2016 elections.

Aguilar's office also recently shared data with The New York Times showing that out of Nevada's 2.1 million active voters, only 138 did not provide a state driver's license or Social Security number when registering to vote and may have registered with alternate forms of ID, which would make it relatively easy to identify noncitizens who are trying to vote.

Updated on 7/29/26 at 2:05 p.m. to correct that Aguilar called the allegations "wildly speculative."