Recently released email communications between Nevada GOP lawyer Brian Hardy and officials at the Nevada Secretary of State’s office have shed light on an alleged clerical data error that created confusion during the final days of mail-in ballot counting for the 2023 Nevada general election.
Discovered late on Sunday, November 10, the error initially made it appear that 28,269 ballots were unaccounted for between turnout reports published on Thursday, November 7, and Friday, November 8. Following extensive weekend reviews, officials from the Secretary of State’s office and the Nevada GOP confirmed that the discrepancy was not due to any ballots going “missing,” as some social media reports suggested, but to a “cut and paste” mistake.
According to Chief Deputy Secretary of State Gabriel Di Chiara, the issue arose when Clark County provided inaccurate data to the Secretary of State’s reports on voter turnout but did not affect the official election results.
“This was a clerical error, and at no point did any election results change based on this error,” Di Chiara clarified. “We were sent a dataset from Clark County that was inaccurate, and that data went into one of our regular reports.”
Di Chiara further explained that while state turnout reports are to provide the public with frequent updates on ballot counts, they are separate from the official results displayed on the secure Election Night Reporting platform at results.nv.gov. The reporting error originated in data sent by Clark County, with a mistake in the “Total Mail Ballots Returned” figure, leading to an erroneous entry for Democratic mail-in ballots.
After reviewing the information, officials corrected the numbers and updated the reports on the evening of Friday, November 8. The accurate total of mail-in ballots returned and accepted for Democrats was 186,522, 1,762 more than initially recorded.
Chairman of the Nevada GOP, Michael McDonald, commented on the incident.
“The NV GOP can appreciate that mistakes are made, but this did not have to happen.”
McDonald suggested that eliminating universal mail-in ballots and ending vote counting by the end of election day could help streamline the process and avoid similar errors.
In addition to this incident, data from Friday, November 8, through Monday, November 11, shows 41,489 ballots added in Nevada, with former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris reportedly receiving fewer than 1,000 votes combined. The lack of public commentary from officials, including NV GOP Chairman Michael McDonald, has sparked questions online.
With the one issue resolved, Nevada election officials continue to emphasize their commitment to transparency, adding that the regularly updated turnout reports are part of a system designed to keep the public informed on ballot processing progress. Critics say a full investigation is needed to preclude the chance that the county was attempting to dump illegal ballots into the system.
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