The Nevada Secretary of State’s (SOS) Office’s ongoing dispute with the Department of Justice (DOJ) has raised questions about expanding federal control over state elections. However, Francisco Aguilar, Nevada Secretary of State, believes University of Nevada, Reno students, as citizens of a battleground state with shockingly narrow margins, can turn the tide of upcoming elections… simply by turning out.
The trouble began in 2020, when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began investigating alleged Nevada voter fraud. When their investigation turned out fruitless, the DHS momentarily backed off.
Yet that was only the beginning of the contest between the offices — because in 2025, the DOJ reached out once more to the SOS’s office demanding sensitive voter registration files without justification or guarantee of the safety of those files. Their lawsuit was met with dismissal in Nevada’s district court — as well as the 30 other states they sued for the same private information.
The information they sued over: Social Security digits, driver’s license numbers, birthdays and full names. Such sensitive information in the hands of an entity that has not declared exactly how they would protect it would be nothing short of a security crisis — but thankfully, it’s Secretary Aguilar’s job to follow the law and safeguard the data, despite intimidation.
“When they sent us the letter and asked us for the information… we didn’t say no… we wrote back… ‘why do you want this information? Who’s going to be responsible for safeguarding it? And how are you going to use it?’ And they didn’t answer any of those questions, they just sued us,” Aguilar said. “By state law it says that I’m not allowed to release private information about Nevada voters. And so I’m going to follow state law rather than giving into the leadership of the DOJ.”
The DOJ’s initial explanation for their lawsuit was that they suspected Nevada’s elections didn’t align with federal standards. Quickly, the accusations turned out to be unfounded: in mid-2026, the Trump administration’s claim that over 15,900 noncitizen matches were found dwindled down to just 185 names… and then 0.
It’s imperative that federal accusations don’t disenfranchise Nevadan voters, especially UNR student voters, because Nevada’s elections have never been as secure as they are now. While the Department of Justice utilized the Civil Rights Act in order to extend their own control over elections, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ranked Nevada and Minnesota as two of the safest states for voter security.
Nevada’s elite election security isn’t coincidental: countless safeguards and protections are built into the system, protecting legitimate voters while rooting out illegitimate registrars. Just one of the more recent measures taken by the SOS’s office to ensure voter safety is called VREMS (Voter Registration and Election Management Solution), a statewide centralized voter registration database. It prevents double voting, cleans up voter rolls, syncs real-time data across counties, eliminates errors, and speeds up lines at the polls.
“When the state had its cyber attack a year ago, the Secretary of State’s office was completely protected. We didn’t have any vulnerabilities,” Aguilar said. “What happens in Nevada happens in the rest of the country… So we have to be super secure in our processes and in our systems… Nevadans should be proud of the fact that Nevada has their back, and nobody’s going to get access to their private information… We are going to fight every single second to protect voter information and to protect our voters.”
What’s UNR’s place in all this confusing legislation, and how does this circle back to individual students? Well, as the dispute continues, Secretary Aguilar wants UNR students to know that you, as members of both a battleground state and a university, have more power than you may think.
“The federal government is trying to federalize our elections because we have a president who wants to maintain control over the elections… We have a president who wants to pick his voters rather than voters choosing the elected,” Aguilar said. “I think it’s important for them [UNR students] to understand the power of their vote… We had a U.S. senate race that was won by seven thousand votes in 2022. If students turn out… They can flip a race pretty drastically.”
Because of its extensive turnout rate, UNR specifically can steer the decision in a certain direction when margins are tight.
“UNR was one of the highest performing universities for the college vote,” Aguilar said. “And we hope that continues because the more students participate, the more they’re going to have power to hold elected officials accountable.”
With the midterm elections just a month away, Nevadans (particularly UNR students) can proceed knowing their information remains secure. It is crucial that students keep in mind the power of their voice — because every single vote matters, and not a single one is unaccounted for.
For further information and updates, visit the Nevada Secretary of State’s official website at https://www.nvsos.gov/.
