Election officials apologize for errors, maintain voting is secure

Carson City Clerk-Recorder Scott Hoen maintained Monday night that despite an error in party affiliation and corrected ballots sent to active voters this week, voting in the Nov. 5 General Election will be safe and secure.

“The Department of Homeland Security and CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) organizations, they’ve done an audit of our polling location and our office,” he said. “I get almost daily alerts about election security issues. They tell me it’s going to be one of the most contentious elections in U.S. history no matter who wins, so they want us to be ready.”

Hoen was one of several members of a forum presented by the League of Women Voters of Northern Nevada, Sierra Nevada Forums and AAUW Capital (NV) Branch, one of four co-sponsored by the Nevada Appeal. The event was moderated by Susan Hoffman. More than 200 people attended at the Brewery Arts Center, and the forum can be watched on the Appeal’s YouTube page at https://youtu.be/O3v5o8SM9bo?si=pkqcsQjqroZr2mmk.

Hoen apologized for the fact the original mail ballots Carson voters received Oct. 5 incorrectly identified Independent American Party U.S. Congressional District 2 candidate Lynn Chapman as a Democrat.

“Ultimately, it was my mistake that the first original ballot was printed incorrectly,” Hoen said. “In consulting with the Secretary of State, the legal team — I even brought in the Elections Group, which is a top consulting company for the country — everybody recommended to do this right with a federal race: we send out a corrected ballot. Not just post a notice, but we send out a corrected ballot. So, we’re going through the process to do that.”
Hoen said corrected ballots were mailed from Seattle on Friday and would be arriving mid-week. Original ballots will only count if the voter doesn’t submit a corrected ballot or doesn’t vote in person.

Hoen told the Appeal that as of Monday night, 1,714 original mail ballots had been received by his office, the signatures for which were being verified by his staff. The plan, as detailed Monday, was to keep original ballots and corrected ballots separate. Hoping voters will utilize the corrected ballots, the office will count the corrected ballots first then invalidate original ballots for anyone who used the corrected ballot.
All mail ballots must be postmarked on or before Nov. 5 and can be received by the Clerk-Recorder’s Office no later than four days after the election (Nov. 9). Hoen expected election results to be available by Nov. 10.

“We will not count the original ballots until the fourth day after the election,” Hoen told the audience on Monday. “So, on Saturday, the 9th, at the close or when we pick up the mail at the Post Office, we will then have all of our corrected ballots in the system, and then we can go to count the original ballots.”

Hoen added: “Again, I’m sorry. It’s my ultimate fault and my ultimate responsibility. I get that. We had a team, and our team is excellent, so don’t take it out on the team. I have five full-time people working right now, probably 12 hours a day, to make this all work.”

One question asked Hoen how he could reassure people, in a political climate of fear and mistrust, that the process will be secure.

“We’re verifying the signature on all our ballots, first of all,” Hoen said. “But we’re keeping them separate. We have two vaults in Carson City, two secure vaults that only limited staff has access to. The janitorial staff can’t even get into our elections room where our vaults are. It’s just tightly secure where we keep these ballots.”

Another question asked about proofreading, staffing, lawsuit potential and costs of the re-balloting.

Hoen mentioned presidential candidates like Jill Stein were on the ballot then pulled off following court rulings, making compilation of the ballot more difficult.       

“There’s five people that are involved in my staff to make it happen,” he said. “We’re implementing new processes for 2026. Trust me, believe me, we’ll probably have an army of 50 people making sure. I mean, seriously. We’re going to go overboard on proofing that for the next election. The Secretary of State’s Office helped us in terms of reviewing the information. It’s just we missed this one, and I can’t do anything about it.”

On the cost of re-balloting, Hoen said the printer and Secretary of State’s Office worked hard to get corrected ballots out without disrupting the election. On exact costs, he said: “We’ll report the costs when I get them. I’d rather give you an accurate number when we have it.”

Hoen wasn’t the only election official who apologized Monday night. Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar apologized for a confusing mailer including new voter registration cards sent out the first week of October. Hoen had told the state not to ask for personal information in a signature update form that other counties received. The mailer was part of the rollout of the state’s top-down voter information database, known as VREMS (Voter Registration and Election Management Solution).
“And because of the new system, every voter in Nevada got a voter ID number,” Aguilar said Monday. “That is to prevent duplicates across counites, to ensure that one voter has one ID and there aren’t duplicates across several counties.”

Aguilar said by law, his office was required to send out the new ID number to every voter in Nevada, and he thought it was an opportunity to update signatures to reduce signature curing.

“And so, to speed up and decrease the number of cured ballots was a priority, and that was the goal,” he said. “And I know your clerk here in Carson City decided not to use the signature verification — which is great; it was his choice; this is his community; he understands the wants and needs of his voters — and we went with a different design. When we proofed that card, it did not include the second piece. And so, when we approved it and sent it off to the vendor for approval, that second piece was not part of the process, and we quickly reached out to the vendor, the printer, and said, ‘What happened here? How did this occur? Why did this occur?’ The printer took full responsibility for the mistake that was made, and I have shared that letter with your clerk and also your mayor to say this was the responsibility of the vendor, the printer who did this.

“And so, I apologize to all of you for the confusion that may have caused.”

A letter signed by Jerry Kiske of the printing company Modern Litho was sent to the Appeal by the Secretary of State’s Office.

“At the Clerk-Recorder and state’s request, this mailing was supposed to remove any reference to the signature update card in other counties,” reads the letter. “Due to an oversight, the instructional sheet referencing the signature card was mistakenly included. We understand the importance of voter confidence and regret any confusion that this mailer may have caused.”

Despite such confusion, Aguilar and Nevada Deputy of Elections Mark Wlaschin maintained the new state system, which stemmed from 2021 legislation, unifies Nevada counties and makes reporting and voter roll maintenance easier and elections more secure.

“We know Nevada is at the forefront of this election,” Aguilar said. “Not just here in our own country, but our adversaries are watching everything we are doing, and we needed to ensure that we have the strongest cybersecurity to protect every vote that is cast in this state, and that system is one of the most (technologically) newest systems that you could have, but we have also built a significant ring around the system from a cybersecurity perspective to know that we are protecting our votes against our adversaries every single day.”

More information on VREMs is online: https://www.nvsos.gov/sos/elections/vrems-project.

Early voting runs from Oct. 19 to Nov. 1. More information: https://www.carson.org/government/departments-a-f/clerk-recorder/elections-department.