The New York Times reports:

A month after the Trump administration declared without evidence that thousands of noncitizens had illegally registered to vote in Nevada, officials with the Department of Homeland Security were unable to substantiate the claim.

The administration claimed to have identified 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in four states, including an exact number of 15,903 in Nevada. But during a meeting last week with state election administrators, Homeland Security officials said they had identified just 185 potential noncitizens in the state so far, according to emails as well as recordings of the meeting obtained by The New York Times.

The federal officials said they were still considering 14,000 names for further review, according to one of the emails. In the virtual meeting, federal officials told Nevada that the nearly 16,000 they had originally identified represented “the ceiling” of potential noncitizens.

But the list the Homeland Security Department shared with Nevada is incomplete — it doesn’t even include names — and is nearly impossible to verify, according to files released by the secretary of state’s office. Nevada officials have requested more information, but the department has not yet offered it.

Unproven claims that large numbers of noncitizens have voted in elections have been at the core of President Trump’s political message and central to his justification to enact the SAVE America Act, which would require people to show proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. Democrats and voting-rights advocates say the legislation is aimed at tipping the scales in this year’s midterm elections for Republicans, in part by making it more difficult for some eligible Americans to cast ballots, notably younger voters and people of color, who tend to vote for Democrats. [Continue reading…]