AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The Supreme Court handed President Trump an interim win on Monday in his effort to limit mail-in voting. The high court paused a lower court's ruling that had previously blocked key parts of an executive order that President Trump issued in March, which, in part, directed the U.S. Postal Service to send mail-in ballots only to verified voters. But this legal fight is far from over. The Postal Service is currently blocked from following those directives as part of a separate but related lawsuit. OK, Cisco Aguilar is Nevada's secretary of state and joins us now. Welcome.
CISCO AGUILAR: Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here.
CHANG: Oh, it's great to have you. So I just want to recap. The executive order - it has not directly affected mail-in voting just yet, but I wanted to talk to you about what you're doing to prepare in case it does. Like, how are you advising county and other local election officials right now?
AGUILAR: We're continuing to run our elections as we always have. The ruling yesterday did not change at all how we are going to run our elections in less than 70 days. We have mail ballots going out the week of September 14 to our military members serving overseas. We're going to continue to have our elections. And that's the important part - is Nevadans can understand that we do have some of the safest, most secure and accessible elections in the country, and we're going to continue to have them. Nothing has changed.
CHANG: I am curious, though. Are you training poll workers or preparing them any differently at this point?
AGUILAR: Well, no, because in-person voting will be the same.
CHANG: OK.
AGUILAR: It's our mail ballots that they're trying to change, and that's a different animal. Those mail ballots take weeks in advance to set up to print, to get to the post office, to get them ready for distribution to Nevadans throughout the state. I do not see any competent way that the federal government and the United States Postal Service are going to be able to do what they want to do in a very short period of time.
CHANG: Yeah. I mean, that said, you sound very reassuring in terms of the processes that you expect to unfold in the next several weeks before the midterm elections, but there still is a lot of legal uncertainty hanging here. And Nevada is a universal mail-in voting state - right? - which means that every single, eligible, active voter receives a mail-in ballot. And these ballots, as, you know, you're talking about, they're set to go out in Nevada in just a matter of weeks. So what kind of impact do you think all this current legal uncertainty might have on voting in your state? Any?
AGUILAR: Well, first of all, we haven't exhausted all of our legal options. The Supreme Court said, hey, you filed too early. Now, once the post office releases its final rule, that gives you an opportunity to actually challenge what they're proposing. And so we're prepared. We're ready to do that. We know that we still have options, and we're going to continue to argue those options, understanding the arguments from the previous Supreme Court case where they heard Watson and ruled in our favor because they understood that states run elections, not the president, not the federal government.
So having some of that understanding, I think we have to continue to do what we do best, and that's run our elections. The individuals trying to intervene into our elections and federalize our elections have no idea how they work. But I think it's important to look at how Nevadans decided to participate in our elections. Sixty percent used mail ballots in our recent primary. Since 2022, 86% of Nevadans have used mail ballots at some point in an election cycle. And our two reddest counties, Douglas and Nye County, are the highest adopters of mail ballots. So we will continue to see Nevadans use mail ballots as their preferred choice to participate.
CHANG: Yeah. OK, so if President Trump gets his way, these policy changes could have a real effect on a lot of voters in Nevada. As you say, a lot of voters vote by mail in Nevada. Can we just acknowledge President Trump's argument, his rationale in doing all of this? Because President Trump has claimed that there are thousands of noncitizens registered to vote in Nevada, but the Department of Homeland Security has not been able to substantiate that claim. Let me ask you, as the secretary of state of Nevada, what is your understanding of how many noncitizens are currently registered to vote in your state? I mean, like, how much have you actually looked into this? Tell us.
AGUILAR: Well, first of all, they sent us an incomplete dataset, and the fact that they're trying to do something that is very serious at a very basic level is very disheartening and discomforting. They're potentially putting a major exposure on themselves because if - once you label somebody as a noncitizen, who is a citizen, you are creating in a situation where you have potential defamation liability, and so we cannot take that risk.
And the dataset that they sent us didn't have all the complete information. We asked for clarity. We asked for additional information, and they said no. So that tells you their ability to really do some of this work. They want to create this national database with the United States Postal Service, but yet they can't do the basic function that they're trying to do to verify voters.
CHANG: Can I ask about...
AGUILAR: So my comfort level...
CHANG: ...The Postal Service...
AGUILAR: ...In thinking that they...
CHANG: ...Here real quick? 'Cause we have only about a minute and a half.
AGUILAR: Sure.
CHANG: Like, you have previously mentioned that the Postal Service misdelivered something like three dozen filled ballots during Nevada's June preliminary...
AGUILAR: Yes.
CHANG: ...Right? You say that that was because of human error. But given the kind of timeline that we're talking about, with midterms just weeks away, are you at all concerned about the Postal Service's ability to handle mail-in ballots if sweeping changes are made?
AGUILAR: From a safety and security position, no. What we're asking voters to do is make a plan. If you're going to use mail ballots, mail them a week before election day. If you're going to use a mail ballot and wait closer to election day, take it to a polling location and drop it off in a drop box so that we know it's in the possession of the county, so that it can get processed in time, and it can get counted. And also, sign up for our technology. Track your ballot. Just log into your voter profile, check the status of your ballot and make sure everything is on the up-and-up. If not, pick up the phone, call the secretary of state's office or call the local county.
CHANG: Great. It's up to voters. But any steps that your office will be taking to help ensure that what happened in June does not happen again?
AGUILAR: Yeah. It's making sure that we, again, confirm that every ballot that is tracked, that has been scanned ends up in the county office. Again, the Postal Service has failed Nevadans, and we cannot rely on them to be a good partner moving forward, but we can use them with some parameters.
CHANG: Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, thank you very much for joining us today.
AGUILAR: Thank you for having me.
CHANG: And we should note that the U.S. Postal Service is a financial supporter of NPR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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