Trump administration demands Nevada keep all 2024 election records

The Trump administration is requiring that Nevada election officials maintain all records from the 2024 election — beyond what federal law requires — threatening civil or criminal penalties if the state does not comply.

In a letter sent Friday to Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar (D), a top Justice Department official wrote that election officials must preserve the records because of ongoing litigation between both sides over the Trump administration's efforts to obtain unredacted copies of the state's voter registration lists. These include voters' driver's license and partial Social Security numbers.

The letter also told Aguilar he was under investigation on allegations he failed to comply with federal voting laws because of his office's refusal to provide the unredacted lists. In an interview Monday, Aguilar called it "a pretty direct threat."

"They're just using this as an opportunity to intimidate us, and I'm not going to fold in any way," he said.

After receiving the letter — which Aguilar said was also sent to other secretaries of state — state officials told local election offices that they had an obligation to preserve the records because the litigation is ongoing.

"But we will continue to make sure that we are not handing over information that does not need to be given," Aguilar said.

The letter is the Trump administration's latest effort to interfere in Nevada elections, which has included legal battles and criminal subpoenas against election officials. 

The U.S. Civil Rights Act requires state election officials to preserve all voting records for 22 months after an election, which expired last week for the 2024 general election. But because the Justice Department is still seeking unredacted copies of the state's voter registration lists — which could rely on information from the 2024 election — the feds argue the information must be retained.

A federal judge last month struck down the lawsuit, but the Justice Department is appealing the ruling. Those deliberations are pending resolution of similar cases in other appellate courts.

In its letter, the Justice Department cited a court case that addressed the preservation of records that could be relevant to ongoing litigation. It added that the state needed to retain all electronic information related to the 2024 election, including network access codes and computer logs.

The letter was written by Eric Neff, the acting chief of the voting section of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Neff was previously placed on leave as a Los Angeles prosecutor amid allegations he was biased in a case against a software company that was the subject of conspiracy theories related to President Donald Trump's unfounded claims he won the 2020 election.

Aguilar emphasized that the secretary of state's office has worked with the Trump administration in its efforts to find out more information about Nevada elections. After the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) alleged more than 15,000 noncitizens could be on the state's voter rolls, Aguilar's office expressed interest in working together to root out noncitizen voting.

Both sides later held a meeting, during which federal officials conceded they had identified only 185 potential noncitizen voters in the state so far, and the number they originally gave was a "ceiling."

"It's fascinating that they're continuing down this track of continued intimidation and continued threats when we've offered to work with them in the past on the DHS side," Aguilar said.