Nevada rejects Trump claim of widespread noncitizen voting, cites no evidence

Donald Trump again pressed an unsupported claim about noncitizen voting, and Nevada rejected it almost immediately as state officials warned the tactic could deepen distrust in elections. Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said the demand was “another attempt” to cast doubt on elections after the Justice Department sent identical letters to all 50 states.

The federal letters warned election officials they could face criminal charges over noncitizen voting, a move that put Washington, D.C., and state election offices on alert even as Trump offered no concrete evidence for his allegation. Nevada was among the first states to push back publicly, making clear that the claim was not backed by any new proof and was being used to reopen a long-running fight over voting rules.

The dispute lands in a state that has become a recurring target for Republican election challenges. In May 2024, the Trump campaign sued Nevada over the state’s mail-in ballot receipt deadline, adding another legal fight to a cycle of disputes that has repeatedly centered on how ballots are cast and counted in the state.

Trump and his allies have spent years arguing that noncitizen voting is a major problem, despite persistent findings from election officials and voting-rights groups that the practice is rare and the allegations are repeatedly unverified. That disconnect matters because the claim has become a political justification for stricter voting rules, including proof-of-citizenship requirements and efforts to restrict mail voting. Critics say those proposals do not respond to documented fraud so much as amplify suspicion around the process itself.

Republican election efforts tied to noncitizen-voting claims have helped shape a broader push to tighten access to the ballot, even as officials in Nevada and elsewhere move quickly to reject unsupported accusations. With the Justice Department now warning that election workers could be prosecuted over the issue, the fight is no longer only about one state or one lawsuit. It is about whether repeated evidence-free claims can keep eroding public confidence in elections long after state officials have debunked them.