Trump campaign, GOP allege noncitizens voted in Nevada, but many were likely naturalized citizens 

While Republicans claim that nearly 4,000 noncitizens voted in the 2020 election in Nevada, a report from the state’s previous Republican Secretary of State suggests that many — and possibly all — of those individuals were naturalized citizens by the time they voted. 

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Nevada Republicans filed a lawsuit last week in Nevada alleging Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar’s office has failed to remove thousands of noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls, who, they claim, could cast votes in the upcoming presidential election. 

In a 23-page complaint filed Thursday in Carson City District Court, the Trump campaign, along with a Clark County voter, the Republican National Committee, and the Nevada GOP, claim nearly 4,000 noncitizens voted in the 2020 presidential election, and that Aguilar, a Democrat, has not adopted any rules or regulations to maintain the state’s voter roll to prevent non-citizen participation in elections. 

Those actions, the plaintiffs argue, thus violate voters’ right to a “fundamentally fair election which is undiluted by the votes of noncitizens.” The party further takes issue with the process of automatic voter registration through the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) when requesting a new or renewed driver’s license, and allege that Aguilar and his predecessor, Republican Barbara Cegavske, have failed to use federal databases to verify the citizenship status of those appearing on the statewide voter roll. 

In obtaining a 2020 list of noncitizens kept by the DMV, Republicans compared that to the statewide voter registration list, which revealed 6,360 noncitizens had been registered to vote when they signed up for driver’s licenses, and that 3,897 cast a ballot in 2020. The lawsuit appears to be a continuation of the dispute the GOP had with Cegavske’s office, which in a 2021 report concluded that “generalized information” from the DMV cannot serve as a basis for an investigation into alleged voter fraud. Cegavske found that noncitizens did not vote en masse in 2020 and that no widespread voter fraud occurred in Nevada. 

Cegavske’s report also notes that it’s plausible that those 3,897 individuals were able to vote in 2020 because they became naturalized citizens before they cast their ballots. 

“Given the large number of naturalizations that occur on an annual basis in Nevada, the data suggests that many voters were likely naturalized between the date of the DMV transaction and the election,” the report reads. “Alternatively, it is possible that some voters had already been naturalized as [of] the date of the DMV transaction but were still in possession of their immigration documents.” 

More than 40,000 noncitizens living in Nevada became naturalized between 2015 and 2019, according to Cegavske’s report, while the National Partnership for New Americans released a report earlier this month estimating that approximately 41,368 Nevadans have been naturalized since the 2020 election.

Cegavske’s report also said for those 40,000-plus individuals, about three years on average had passed between the date of each registered voter’s DMV transaction and the 2020 election.

Cegavske additionally noted that the US Supreme Court and lower courts have ruled election officials cannot require documentary proof of citizenship as a condition of voter registration. 

“Therefore, as federal and state law currently stands, a person’s affirmation is sufficient to establish US citizenship for purposes of voter registration,” the report stated. “Without specific evidence to establish that identified individuals were foreign nationals when they voted in the November 3 election, there is nothing further that can be investigated.”

Despite Cegavske’s report, the GOP’s new lawsuit argues Aguilar, who didn’t assume his office until 2023, is “violating his statutory duties to ensure that only citizens are registered to vote.”  

“By not verifying the citizenship of those on the voter rolls, the Secretary is diluting the votes of the Individual Plaintiff and the Republican Party Plaintiffs’ members,” the complaint states. “The Secretary’s violations thus violate the rights of Plaintiffs’ members to participate in Nevada elections on an equal, undiluted basis.”

‘Only United States citizens are eligible to vote in Nevada’s elections’

Existing Nevada and federal law make it illegal for noncitizens to participate in US elections at any level, and the number of votes the lawsuit alleges were cast illegally would not have changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential race. Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump in Nevada by approximately 33,596 votes, and the 3,987 individuals the GOP say voted illegally in 2020 represents 0.003% of the 1.4 million votes cast that year. 

In a statement, Aguilar’s office did not comment on the litigation and denied claims that elections in the state aren’t secure. 

“Only United States citizens are eligible to vote in Nevada’s elections,” Aguilar’s office said. “There are already numerous safeguards in place to prevent noncitizens, or anyone ineligible to vote, from casting a ballot. Any claims of a widespread problem are false and only create distrust in our elections. The Secretary of State’s Office is focused on running successful, safe and fair elections on behalf of the voters.”

Despite claims from Trump and other conservatives that Democrats are “rigging” elections by registering undocumented immigrants and other noncitizens to vote, federal penalties for illegal voting may include deportation and revocation of their legal status, as well as denial of future immigration status, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank.

Further, an analysis from the conservative Heritage Foundation — the same group that spearheaded the controversial Project 2025 policy guide — found just 24 cases of noncitizen voting between 2003 and 2023. A separate study from the Brennan Center for Justice, which reviewed roughly 23.5 million votes cast in 2016 and found 30 instances of noncitizens voting. 

Kerry Durmick, the Nevada State Director of the advocacy group All Voting is Local, said Tuesday those stiff penalties are usually more than enough to deter noncitizens from voting illegally. 

“Non-citizen voting is not an issue,” Durmick said in a response to a question from The Nevadan regarding the lawsuit. “And most of the time when this happens, it is actually the noncitizen being manipulated by somebody else to think that they can vote.”

She continued: “If you are a noncitizen and you vote in a federal election, you actually cannot become a citizen ever of the country, and so this really impacts your path to citizenship, which I know is extremely important to several undocumented people who are not citizens, that are trying to gain that access.” 

Durmick also noted that Aguilar’s recent rollout of the Voter Registration and Election Management Solution (VREMS) may actually help ensure noncitizens are unable to vote. Prior to last month’s rollout of the system, clerks and election administrators from each of Nevada’s 17 counties utilized a “bottom-up” list of registered voters that was maintained by that county and transmitted to the state. VREMS instead allows the state to keep a centralized database of active registered voters that can make it easier to cross-reference voter information like address, date of birth, and residency status. 

“Instead of having 17 different counties run their voter registration rolls, everything is going to be streamlined through the Secretary of State’s office which I think is extremely important to keeping our rolls clean,” Durmick said. “If somebody moves from county to county, there’s not going to be a delay in that person’s voter registration.”

Last week’s lawsuit is the fourth filed in Nevada this year either by the Trump campaign or the RNC ahead of the Nov. 5 election. The other three, which have challenged the time window mail ballots can be received for tabulation, voter roll maintenance, and the counting of mail ballots with unidentifiable postmarks, have all been dismissed. All three, however, are in various stages of appeal, according to The Nevada Independent. 

Following the 2020 election, courts almost entirely rejected the dozens of cases brought by Trump’s campaign asserting that widespread voter fraud cost Trump electoral victory over Biden. Those lawsuits failed to produce any evidence corroborating such claims, and Democratic lawyers who fought Trump’s lawsuits have argued that these cases only serve to sow doubt in the electoral progress. 

And it’s lawsuits like the one filed last week that can give Trump-allied local officials reason enough to hold up certifying the election, which would further drive the false narrative that American elections are unsafe, said Hannah Fried, executive director of All Voting is Local.

“Efforts to undermine certification really cannot be understated,” Fried said. “Not because they will be effective in the sense of actually stopping the election from being concluded … but because of the disinformation and distrust that they foster.”