A recent poll shows nearly 1/3 of U.S. voters are not confident that votes will be counted accurately in the 2024 Presidential election.

How the state is addressing that uncertainty, that's this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

As we saw in 2020 and 2022, counting votes in Nevada tends to take longer than in other states.

Delayed election results can lead some to suspect fraud, and so getting results quicker is just one of several tasks Nevada's Secretary of State has undertaken ahead of a high-stakes Presidential election.

Fransisco Aguilar, welcome back to Nevada Week.

Thank you for having me.

Excited to be here.

-Going back to that poll mentioned in the intro, a Quinnipiac poll in which nearly 1/3 of U.S. voters said they are not confident that votes will be counted accurately in the 2024 Presidential election.

What do you think when you hear that?

-Look, it's concerning, right?

You want that number to be lower.

But there are still 2/3 who are confident in our elections process.

Again, I go back to the basic statement, Nevada runs some of the most safe, secure, and accessible elections in the country.

And I'm proud of it.

I'm proud of the work our 17 county clerks do throughout this state.

They are working hard every day.

And it's important to remember the clerks in Washoe and in Clark County are appointed by their county commission.

15 of the 17 are elected by their local community.

Our clerks and our election workers are our neighbors.

They're Nevada citizens, and they want to do the best job they can for the entire state of Nevada.

-And they have representation from both parties, correct?

-Absolutely.

We know for a fact that 13 of the 15 elected are Republican, one is nonpartisan, and one is a Democrat.

So there is a mixture of representation every time we make a decision about policy related to elections.

-The distrust of elections in Nevada that some voters have, how do you think this new case with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., impacts that?

-Again, it goes back to following the law.

It's my job as Secretary of State to be a regulator.

It is my job to read the statute, to know the regulations, and to say this is what the law says.

This is not about RFK.

Nevada has a strong history of third-party candidates.

We put out guidance, guidance in early March to say, Hey, here, a reminder, here's the Nevada statute.

And I go back to I'm an attorney.

I represented clients.

I've worked 12 years for Andre Agassi and Stephanie Graf.

When we did something or we had a project, we always knew what the law was, and it was my job as an attorney to give them sound advice.

-Okay.

So he is running as an Independent, which in Nevada means that he has to get a certain number of signatures on a petition and then he would be placed directly onto the-- -Correct.

- --general election ballot.

He claims your office told him he could start getting those signatures without listing a Vice Presidential candidate on the petition.

He says he went about getting all those signatures, then came back to you, and your office said, Oh, that's likely invalid.

You needed to have listed a running mate.

Is that how this went down?

-First of all, when you're a Presidential candidate, you ensure you have strong legal counsel.

It is the responsibility of that legal counsel to go read the statute in every state where they want to qualify and understand what is required of it.

It's also their responsibility to read the regulations and give their counsel guidance on that.

-Did your office tell them that?

-It's not that hard.

You have to think about it this way.

When you go to DMV, when you go to a state agency, you go to a government office and walk up to the window and ask somebody a question, you have-- you are ultimately responsible to ensure you're following the law.

Yes, we did make a mistake.

We owned up to that mistake.

We understood what we did, and we immediately worked to correct it.

We sent out that guidance to every third-party candidate.

Cornell West immediately complied with the law once he was given that guidance.

-Why can't you make an exception in his case if your office did give him the wrong information?

-Again, it goes back to what does the law say and what is the responsibility?

This is not about RFK.

This is not a personal issue.

This is what Nevada law says.

-So what does he do now?

-He can continue to gather signatures with his Vice Presidential candidate.

Obviously, they have chosen the litigation route, which we're ready to go.

There is a Nevada Supreme Court precedent that says when an individual receives information from an employee of the state and that information contradicts state statute or a state regulation, the state statute rules.

-So when does he have to submit those signatures, and how many?

-I believe it's July 5 he has.

-Okay.

And something like 10,000?

-Correct.

-Is he doing that?

-I have no idea.

It's not my responsibility to know.

All I know is here are the statutes, here are the regulations, this is what is expected.

And for me to make a carve-out for one candidate over the other I don't think is fair.

Again, it goes back to the responsibility of the candidate to know the law.

It's your job to read the law.

If there are misconceptions or questions about the law, then you can call my office and say, Hey, here's the situation.

When you pick up the phone or you send an email to a general email account, you're gonna get a number of individuals to answer that information.

And again, I go back to this is a time when we need to respect election workers.

Some of the mistakes you're seeing throughout the state or throughout the counties are coming because we've lost so much experience in the election space because of the intimidation, because of the harassment.

And we recognize we have to do a better job in training our staff, but there are so many issues to address and there are so many concerns, that we have a lot of checks and balances in place to resolve these issues when they do occur.

And when we are notified of this situation, we immediately reacted and figured out how to resolve it.

-So then how prepared is Nevada this election season in terms of poll workers?

-I think Washoe and Clark have done an incredible job of going out there to recruit election workers.

We looked at this issue long before I even came into office to say what is it we can do now that will strategically ensure that election workers are protected?

We passed the Election Worker Protection bill.

We've gone out and talked to communities.

We're doing several things.

One thing I'm really excited-- -Are there enough, though, for the June 11 primary?

-There will be, yes.

Clark-- actually, it's really funny because we did a partnership with Vet the Votes, which is getting veterans involved in the process, because everybody understands what a veteran has done to protect our rights and our freedoms.

And to get them engaged in the election process is a big win for our entire community.

The other thing we did is we went to high school students.

We went to the Boys and Girls Club.

We went to Cristo Rey High School and said, At 16 years old, you can be a poll worker.

28 students from Cristo Rey High School signed up to be poll workers.

Unfortunately, the timing they signed up, they missed some of the training, but they are on as alternates.

So Clark County is fully engaged with its poll workers.

They are fully ready to go.

If you go to an early polling site now, you'll see a bunch of excited happy poll workers that will greet you.

-So you say there will be enough for June 11.

What about for the general election, or is it too soon to say?

-It's too soon to say now.

Again, we got to get through the primary election.

Once the primary election is over, we will be at being creative in the way we recruit poll workers.

-And part of whether you get more poll workers ahead of the general election could be impacted by how poll workers are treated for this primary?

-That is correct.

And we have not had any major incidences with poll workers.

So I think people are truly starting to understand what poll workers do.

We have to remember that poll workers are the unsung heroes of our democracy.

Elections do not work without them.

They are, 80% of poll workers are women.

They're our sisters, our mothers, our wives, our daughters, and we need to understand that we need to bring decency back to the process.

You may disagree with some decisions I make.

You may disagree with other election officials.

But at the end of the day, we are all Nevadans and we are trying to do what's in the best interest of the state.

-A recent Brennan Center survey found that 38% of local election officials experienced threats, harassment, or abuse for doing their jobs.

Have you experienced any of this?

-Yes, but I don't like to talk about it.

Because again, I knew getting into the position what was going to happen?

Again, I go back to my experience as Chair of the Nevada Athletic Commission.

You know what that experience is given your previous experience within the sports world.

-I used to interview you when you were chair of that commission, yes.

-There were hard decisions that had to be made.

And when you're making hard decisions, when people are passionate, they're committed, you're gonna get some pushback.

And that's okay.

-Isn't it good to talk about it, though, to let people know what kind of threats people like you are facing?

-Yeah.

But it's not something that I think about every day.

I think about, okay, this occurred.

What I think about are the poll workers out there that didn't sign up to be in this position of responsibility; they signed up to do us a favor.

And when somebody signed up to do something for you, to help benefit us as a community, that's where I want to step in and talk about the issues.

I signed up.

I ran for this position.

I chose to be here.

I knew what was occurring.

I still chose to be here because I knew the importance of what it meant to our society, to our democracy, and to our community.

-So let's talk about the distrust again in elections.

When you do talk to Nevada voters and they say they are not confident in the process, what are their main reasons for that?

I think it's a misconception about the process.

It's a misconception about the law.

But also, too, understanding that we have checks and balances in the system.

There are separation of duties.

You know, working at a bank-- -What are some of their claims that they bring to you?

-It's all over the place.

-Is it?

-You even see it in-- we establish this process for our election integrity violation reports.

We set up our investigative team to look at those reports, to look at all issues that have come up, and sometimes they're just there to harass us or to create busy work for us.

In reality, when you get down to it and there is a real issue, we are on top of it, we are catching it.

You have to understand, we're 3,000 voters short of 2 million registered voters in Nevada.

And when you have four cases that move to prosecution in the Attorney General's Office out of 2 million, that is .000000 of an error.

So our systems, our processes, our separation of duties are working.

And they will continue to work because we're implementing better systems, better control, and better systems to give us the information in realtime to know when a potential fraud is occurring.

-We're going to talk about the new systems.

I imagine that's what you're going to respond to.

When I asked you about what happened in February, there were voters who logged onto your site looking to see the status of their registration, saw that there was a mail-in ballot recorded for them, even though they didn't participate in the Presidential Preference Primary.

What happened with that?

I mean, that has to hurt Nevadans trust in the system, don't you think?

-No, because it's a separation of duties.

Again, there's the tabulation system, which is completely separate from the voter registration and election management system.

So it had nothing to do with the tally of the vote at all.

-There was no impact on the outcome?

-There was no impact because they are two different systems.

They operate off of two different platforms.

So those checks and balances, those chain of custody issues are built on purpose that way-- decentralization of the actual tabulation from the State, right?

And so when you're looking at those issues, it's intentional why they exist the way they do.

-So what happened in this case?

-What happened is we go back to legacy systems.

There are a lot of legacy systems that are operating throughout this state.

We have 17 counties with 17 different systems that have not been replaced because there is not the support or infrastructure or resources for them to do it.

They have 17 different processes.

Each county decides how they want to do it at this point in time.

But in '21, the legislature said, We need to unify this.

We need to ensure we are managing this in an appropriate way.

And so they implemented top-down voter registration.

The legislature in '21 said the state must transition to this by '24.

It had not started prior to me taking office.

Taking office, I realized the responsibility I had to the state legislature to be in compliance with the law, but I also knew what legacy systems existed in the counties, which goes to great cybersecurity issues.

We talk about cybersecurity being an important aspect of safe elections.

We're getting ahead of the cybersecurity issues by making sure the state system is fully compliant with every requirement.

We actually, the team went this past week to a conference, IACA.

Nevada is leading in cybersecurity.

We know we are doing what's right when it comes to cybersecurity, because we all had a scare here recently with what happened on the Strip.

And we have to be prepared for that to occur on the government side as well.

And I have to commend the Governor's office for cybersecurity for stepping up and really providing a vision and providing us the support to get where we're getting.

Not only do we have election data, we have a lot of data on business owners and business corporations because we do corporate business filings.

-Okay.

-So we need to ensure that system is protected as the election system.

-Let's go back to what happened in February.

Will you explain it simply, where was the error and how did you fix it?

-So we had 17 different processes feeding into one state system, and each county is different.

And so when we take that data, we have to try to match it all together so we can compute one.

And what happened was there was a code called "MB," which stood for "mail ballot."

Some counties used it as a "mail ballot was mailed."

Some counties used MB as a "mail ballot was received, voted."

And so when you get a crisscross of those, you get the different data.

But again, we caught it, and we quickly fixed it and made sure it was accurate.

-This top-down system, it's in place?

-This will not occur ever again.

-Okay.

All right, then.

Is it going to help speed up the results of elections?

-Yes.

That's something I'm really excited about is working with Washoe County leadership, Clark County leadership to say, Hey, voters in Nevada are choosing to participate in a different way.

We know that 78% of voters participated by mail during the Presidential Preferential Primary.

People are choosing to do this.

We need to build the operational system to handle that demand.

It's making sure we have the machines, we have the people, and that we're moving to 24-hour processing, that we are looking at these processes and saying, We can no longer operate like we did in 2020.

We are in '24 now, and we need to ensure Nevada voters get the results they want on election night.

-And what are you doing to ensure that?

-One is making sure there are resources to buy the counties more machines, that the counties are working to train and hire more people to operate those machines and to do the jobs we need them to do throughout the tabulation process.

But also, too, like Clark going to a 24-hour operation is really critical to all of this.

-These things you're mentioning sound like they are not going to be in place.

-Simply operational.

-They're not going to be in place.

-Some.

-New voting machines, money for new voting machines?

-So '25 is we will replace the entire voting systems throughout the state.

-2025?

-Yes.

-Okay.

-But the behind-the-scenes, the tabulation process, there are new machines that have been bought or in the process of being bought, there's more staff that's been hired and trained, and there are operational changes to the time that they're actually focusing on tabulation.

Clark County has made extensive efforts to increase that capacity and to increase the number of ballots they're able to process per hour.

-And when are they starting to tabulate?

You've made some recommendations to counties?

-Yes, we have a new guidance.

One is, again, we are going to be able to tabulate early results on Election Day after 8 a.m. And once they do the tabulation, they can send it to the State.

So when the last person votes in Nevada, we can send out that data and that information to those individuals that are requesting it and most of the media to look at that data, to look at that information, and to do whatever they do with the information.

Because before, the last person would vote, they would start working on the tabulation, the sending of data to the State for us to be able to release it to the public.

They're trying to close polling sites.

They're trying to do that tabulation.

They're trying to do a lot of things all at once.

And we stepped back and said, Okay, what are other states doing to increase the efficiency and the expertise of the tabulation process?

This is not something we thought up on our own.

We went to other states, looked at the best in class and said, Okay, Minnesota is doing a great job in the tabulation and delivery of their information.

What can we learn from them?

Then it was looking at Nevada statutes and saying, What does the statute allow us to do?

What authority has the legislature given to us?

Then it's going to the Attorney General's office and getting the lawyers to say, Yes, this does meet Nevada law, you can do this.

And then working with the clerks to say, Hey, this is a change we're going to implement.

Any thoughts?

Feedback?

And I think giving them the opportunity to do the job we want them to do without having to worry about other issues, one, eliminates their ability to make mistakes, because they're truly focused on the task at hand, rather than the 30 tasks that usually come at the end of an election evening.

-Okay.

So Election Day after 8 a.m. they can start counting?

-Early votes and mail ballots received up until that point.

-Okay.

That should help.

-Yes.

-I mean, so this primary June 11, will we have results that night?

-That's the intention.

And it's-- my intention is only to get better at it.

Because the more we increase that capacity, the more we increase that investment, the better off we will be.

Look, again, I go back to the fact that Nevada is a purple state, we are a swing state.

Some of our races are going to be extremely close, and there may be a few we may not be able to call because of that closeness.

We have to get accuracy right.

-When we talk about delays in election results, a big part of that in Nevada is because of mail-in voting and the system that is in place here, which allows for-- -It's not the mail-in voting.

What it is, is the processing of those ballots at the county election centers.

-Which can happen up to four days after Election Day.

-Correct.

-Okay.

And so-- -The thing is, to look at the data from '22, Clark County had 95% of mail ballots on hand on Election Day.

Washoe County had 97% of the ballots on hand on Election Day.

So they had that.

Then you look at the 24-hour period-- -They could have started counting?

-Yes.

If they had the capacity, they could have every single one of those ballots processed and those results given that night or the next morning.

-Okay.

-Then if you look at the data even more, 99% of all mail-in ballots were received within 24 hours of Election Day.

So then you could really call the races if you were able to process every election ballot on hand.

So that's why I keep hammering capacity, capacity, processing, processing.

-Oh, I do want to clarify.

Now, this is a recommendation you made to the counties.

Do they actually have to do it?

Are they going to do it, begin counting?

-Yes.

-On Election Day?

-Yes.

-All of them?

-We're in conversation with Clark and Washoe because, again, if you look at Clark, we are 70% of the election ballots in the state.

Washoe is 15-17%.

That's 87% of the ballots.

-But they haven't said that they're going to do it?

-I have to give this to the rural counties.

They've done an amazing job of capacity.

They can give their results in real-- at the end of the election night or within 24 hours.

They do a phenomenal job.

The bottleneck, Washoe, which is what national pundits want, is sometimes the holdup.

-I'll only ask one more time.

Have they said whether they're going to begin counting both of them?

-Yes.

-All right.

-We have worked with their elections clerk, we have worked with the county manager, we have talked to commissioners about this, and I am confident that they understand, too, the obligation they have to Nevada voters.

-That four-day allowance.

The Republican National Committee has an issue with it, says that it violates the Constitution's requirement that there be a single day for Election Day.

So they are suing so that the ballots received after Election Day cannot be counted.

Your response to that?

-Again, you look at the voter in Nevada.

We are a 24-hour, 24/7 economy.

We are working people.

And to ask people to do something that is a privilege to some but not to others, that their vote doesn't count, makes absolutely no sense to me.

-And this is, gosh, one of how many lawsuits you're involved in?

[laughter] -Hey, it's pretty-- look, people ask me, you know, Do you get frustrated?

Do you get-- no.

Because what it is, I believe it's a validation on the decision making we are doing.

We are not arbitrarily making decisions.

We are making decisions in consultation with strong legal counsel, the Attorney General's office.

I read the statutes myself, I look at the issue and step back and say okay.

These aren't decisions that are made lightly.

But when we get to go before a judge and explain our decision process and explain why we made the decision we made and you hear a judge reconfirm the decision you made, that's a good feeling.

Because not only what it does is give you justification, but it educates the voter more about the process and also gives them the ability to understand that this decision has been validated by a neutral audience, the judge.

-Biggest challenges Nevada faces ahead of November?

-I think it's these lawsuits that are coming that are not being filed for good intent.

I think it's not only of a lawsuit, but government offices are pounded with FOIA requests.

That is taking Nevada taxpayer money to defend these lawsuits to respond to these FOIA requests.

FOIA is the Freedom of Information Act.

That's access to information that's in emails, text messages, telephone calls, whatever.

But it takes an exceptional amount of time to meet these demands, and what you're doing is draining taxpayer resources.

-And this is being done by?

-It's being done by parties that, you know-- -In addition to the lawsuits?

-Right.

And so it's not just-- these are the things that drive me crazy, because Nevadans have priorities, right?

We want to see a strong public education system.

We want strong health care.

We want investment in infrastructure.

And when we're being distracted by these lawsuits and these FOIA requests, it takes away from our ability to do the job that Nevada taxpayers want us to do.

And sometimes the people doing the things that take time are not even from Nevada.

And that's what's frustrating.

-Regardless of who wins the Presidential election in November, are you bracing for claims of voter fraud?

-Look, I'm confident in the work our 17 clerks are doing.

I'm confident in my election staff at the state level.

We are here to do our job.

If it comes to that, we are prepared to go to court and defend our decisions.

We are prepared to defend the process.

-I want to turn to a ballot initiative now.

I know you prewarned me you can't say much, but Ballot Question 3 seeks to implement open primaries and ranked-choice voting.

Opponents argue that in close races, it could take weeks to determine the winner, leading many voters to question the validity of the results.

What do you think of that claim?

-First, you have to look at the question.

I think there are two separate issues in that question.

One is ranked-choice voting, and one is open primaries.

I think they're two separate issues that should have been considered separately.

And I think they were smart in understanding that open primaries was a popular initiative, a popular policy, and they believed ranked-choice voting can jump on the back of open primaries.

Again, what I'm gonna say is, Is this initiative being driven by Nevadans, or is it being driven by out-of-state interest?

And so that's the question I think Nevada voters have to understand.

-There are several out-of-state interests investing money in it.

-And again, you look at Nevada, we have such a strong presence from the value of our vote considering the number of Nevadans we have.

And so people see Nevada as an opportunity to say, Hey, they have an important role throughout the country and will play an important role in this Presidential election.

Let's try to test our concepts and our ideas, and then bring it out to the rest of the country.

The other thing that concerns me is if it does pass, I am then responsible for implementation.

-And education.

-And education.

Again, it's going to be Nevadans who are going to pick up the bill to do that education and to do that implementation.

It's Nevada taxpayers that are going to have to accept responsibility for the implementation.

-When can Nevadans expect a sample ballot for the general election?

-That is up to the counties.

I know the counties are on top of it.

They will have their ballots well in advance to be able to sit down with their ballot, go through the candidates, research the issues, and be able to make a smart, intelligent vote.

-Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, thank you for coming back on.

-Thank you for having me.

Always excited to be here.

-And if you want to share your opinion about this year's elections or questions and concerns you have about your community, we invite you to attend our next Nevada Democracy Project listening session.

It's Thursday, June 20, at the CSN Henderson Student Union.

Doors open at 5:30 p.m. You can register on our website, vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

And that is also where you'll find resources for today's show.

We'll see you next week on Nevada Week.