When DHS officials got on a call with Nevada's election officials to discuss the Trump administration's claims of noncitizens on the state's voter rolls, the state's top elections official had a lot to push back on, including the mispronunciation of his state.
As a DHS official spoke, Nevada Deputy Secretary of State for Elections Mark Wlaschin cut in.
"Sorry, super quick. I'd be remiss and every fellow Nevadan would lose their mind if I didn't correct you. It's said Nevada, not Nevahda," he said, according to a recording reported by the Guardian's Sam Levine. "I grew up on the East Coast, I'm sure I got it wrong at first, but Nevada, if you don't mind, please."
Nevada officials have spent weeks pressing DHS to substantiate Secretary Markwayne Mullin's claim that nearly 16,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in the state — part of a sweeping assertion of more than 250,000 across four states that Mullin billed as proof of widespread fraud.
So far, the numbers have come up short. In records Nevada released and recordings obtained by CNN and MS NOW, DHS officials acknowledged they had "confirmed" just 185 potential noncitizens through manual review and had yet to examine more than 14,000 other flagged names.
The shortfall lands as DHS has threatened to prosecute election officials and withhold federal money from states that won't turn over voter data — pressure that Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar and voting experts have called baseless. "I can't take something that's made up out of thin air and try to justify it," Aguilar told CNN.
