Carson City clerk-recorder responds to GOP lawsuit alleging inaccurate voter rolls

Carson City Clerk-Recorder Scott Hoen is calling a lawsuit brought by the Republican Party against him and other Nevada defendants “unfortunate.”

“It is unfortunate that the RNC used inaccurate data when filing the lawsuit,” he told the Appeal. “Carson City has a little over 85% of the possible adult population registered and is in direct conflict with their claims.”

The lawsuit was filed on March 18 in U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada. It names Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, Hoen and other election officials: Lorena Portillo (Clark County), Amy Burgans (Douglas County), Staci Lindberg (Lyon County) and Jim Hindle (Storey County).

Hindle was one of six people indicted by a Nevada grand jury last year for alleged efforts to falsely declare former president Donald Trump winner of the 2020 election.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the Republican National Committee, Nevada Republican Party and Nevada resident Scott Johnston. The suit follows a Dec. 4, 2023, letter from the plaintiffs that threatened such litigation. The civil complaint in the lawsuit refers to the National Voting Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) and alleges state and local officials have failed to maintain accurate voter rolls throughout Nevada.

“Based on data gathered from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey and the most up-to-date count of registered active voters available from the Nevada Secretary of State, three counties have more active registered voters than voting-eligible citizens, and two other counties have suspiciously high rates of active voter registration,” the suit says.

The suit alleges Carson City has a voter registration rate of 92 percent, referred to as “abnormally” high. The plaintiffs are asking the court for declaratory judgment against the defendants, an injunction barring them from violating federal law, an order “to cure” their alleged failure regarding voter rolls, lawsuit costs, attorney fees and other relief.

Hoen provided the math behind the 85 percent registration rate his office cited. The 2022 U.S. Census population estimate for Carson was 58,130, he said, with 20 percent under the age of 18, meaning 46,504 are eligible to vote. With 39,700 active Carson City voters, the registration rate is 85 percent, he said.

A Jan. 18 letter from the Nevada Attorney General’s Office, run by Democrat Aaron Ford, said the original letter threatening litigation did not establish a “plausible violation” of federal voting laws and relied on “highly flawed” analysis.

“You rely on data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) to say that Nevada had a registration rate of 65.1% in 2022. And you rely on data from an entirely different survey, the 2017- 2021 5-Year Citizen Voting Age Population (CVAP), to provide the denominator for your calculation of the current registration rates in the counties. This is comparing apples to orangutans,” says the letter signed by Senior Deputy Attorney General Laena St-Jules.

On March 29, Aguilar, also a Democrat, issued the following statement: “The Secretary of State believes this lawsuit is meritless, and will be filing a motion to dismiss.”