Voter Roll Maintenance

When someone registers to vote in Nevada, election officials take steps to confirm their eligibility, including verifying their identity. Voters are then added to the state’s voter roll. Election officials at the state and local level take the responsibility of maintaining an accurate voter roll very seriously. They follow federal and state law to protect voters and ensure Nevada elections are accurate, fair, and secure. That means Nevada’s voter rolls are carefully and regularly updated.

For example, state and local officials work together to process new voter registrations, send confirmation notices to voters when they learn a voter’s status may have changed, handle any challenges to registrations, and remove voters who are no longer eligible to vote in Nevada.

Learn more about how to register to vote here.

The National Voter Registration Act

Voter roll maintenance is conducted in accordance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), which made registering to vote more accessible for Americans. To protect registered voters, the NVRA has strict rules on how to maintain accurate voter rolls in a uniform, nondiscriminatory way.

This federal law has a number of safeguards against any list maintenance that could accidentally lead to an eligible voter being dropped from the rolls. For example, state and local officials generally must finish routine list maintenance 90 days before an election. There are of course reasonable exceptions, such as a voter asking to have their registration canceled or the Secretary of State’s office receiving official notice that a voter has died.

The NVRA also prohibits canceling a voter’s registration because of a suspected change of address until they have been given notice, failed to respond, and not voted for two federal general elections in a row. Find more information on this process below.

Current List Maintenance Efforts

In accordance with federal and state law, state and local election officials in Nevada have worked diligently to make sure the state’s voter rolls are accurate.

Ensuring deceased registrants are removed:

Election officials receive records from the Office of Vital Records daily that are used to identify deceased voters. Those deceased voters who are still registered to vote are identified to their respective county election official who then cancel the voter registrations. The Secretary of State also receives information through a report provided due to our membership with the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). This ERIC report provides information from the Social Security Administration’s Limited Access Death Master File (LADMF). This report is generated by comparing voter registration data to the LADMF. Registered voters who appear to match a deceased individual are included in this report.

Confirming whether a voter has moved: Election officials regularly review data from reliable governmental sources for evidence that a registrant may no longer reside where they are registered to vote. This search includes information received based on Nevada’s membership in the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a non-partisan partnership of 24 states and the District of Columbia to share voter registration data with each other in an effort to keep voter rolls accurate, and includes information from the United States Postal Service National Change of Address database. Confirmation steps include:

1. Notice to the voter: When election officials find reliable evidence that a registered voter has moved, they mail a forwardable confirmation notice to the voter.
2. Voter response: The voter can indicate they have not moved or confirm the address change. Sometimes the voter will not respond, or the notice is returned to the election official as undeliverable.
3. Changes to the roll: Depending on the voter’s response (or lack thereof), election officials take appropriate steps to change the rolls. If a voter confirms their address, they leave the voter’s registration unchanged. If they confirm they have moved within Nevada, officials will update the voter’s address. And if the voter does not respond, they will be moved to the inactive list. Inactive voters are not sent a mail ballot but may still vote if they remain eligible. If voters do not respond and do not vote for two federal general elections in a row, their registrations may be canceled.

The stats: In the recent list maintenance period (after the June 2024 primary until August 7, 2024), Nevada election officials sent out a total of 185,644 NVRA notices statewide and inactivated at least 138,267 registrations. Nevadans whose registration has been inactivated may still be still eligible voters, they just do not receive a ballot by mail.

Voter Registration Challenges

In addition to the list maintenance completed regularly by trained election officials, there is also what’s called a “voter challenge.” For example, if one Nevadan has personal knowledge that another has permanently moved away in a way that makes them ineligible, under some circumstances Nevada law permits a residency challenge against that voter. (NRS 293.535 and NRS 293.547).

Residency challenges under NRS 293.535 are required to show that a voter has:

• moved away from the county where they are registered to vote and established residence in a new county, state, territory, or country, which must be named;
• the intention of remaining there for an indefinite time; and
• the intention of abandoning their residence in the county where they are registered to vote.

Residency challenges under NRS 293.547 must meet at least these requirements:

• brought by a registered voter in the same precinct as the person whose right to vote is challenged;
• based on personal knowledge; and
• filed no sooner than 30 days but no later than 25 days before an election.

Secretary of State Election Guidance

As Nevada’s Chief Elections Officer, the Secretary of State is responsible for executing and enforcing state and federal election laws and adopting rules and regulations to successfully implement them.

Because statutes are often complicated, the Secretary may provide guidance to county officials on how to interpret or implement existing election law. Guidance is not binding but allows county officials to tap into the Secretary’s institutional knowledge and statewide perspective to ensure election processes are conducted uniformly across Nevada.

The Secretary has issued several guidance documents to county officials interpreting list maintenance requirements and voter challenges over the past year, including:

• Guidance on voter roll maintenance procedures required under the NVRA and state law (March 3, 2023)
• Guidance on the ability of external parties to contribute to voter registration list maintenance procedures required under the NVRA and state law (April 26, 2024)
• Guidance on written challenges pursuant to NRS 293.547 (May 13, 2024)
• Guidance on the “personal knowledge” required to challenge a registered voter pursuant to NRS 293.535 and NRS 293.547 and requirements of the NVRA in connection with such challenges (August 27, 2024).

For more information:

Registering to Vote

Voter Roll Maintenance

National Voter Registration Act