Nevada officials will not press charges for voter fraud
CARSON CITY — No criminal charges will be filed in the investigation into six Clark County residents who voted twice in the June primary, the Nevada secretary of state’s office announced Tuesday.
Forty-three people voted twice in the election last month, and last week Clark County officials announced that six — two Republicans, two Democrats and two nonpartisans — were being investigated for casting their ballot twice intentionally.
But after interviewing the six voters, Nevada election officials decided against pressing charges, saying that the people did not realize they had voted twice.
The blame, they added, was on technology problems and human error on behalf of election workers.
“The voting systems in use in Nevada are designed to prevent a person from voting twice in the same election; however, connectivity issues and the failure of election workers to follow proper procedure allowed these six individuals to bypass the built-in safeguard,” the secretary of state’s office said.
“We take voter fraud very seriously and as soon as the issue was brought to our attention, we launched a criminal investigation,” Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske said in a statement.
Five of the six people had voted during early voting and on election day, the office said. The sixth voted twice during early voting.
In the other 37 cases of double voting, the office added, the voters had alerted workers of an issue and were allowed to cast a second ballot because they thought their first one did not register.
Contact Capital Bureau reporter Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com or 775-461-3820. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.