The state of Nevada is currently in the process of modernizing its voter registration system through the Voter Registration and Election Management Solution Project, or VREMS.

This project aims to completely revamp the current system, which currently requires voter registration at the county level.

Instead, VREMS will establish a centralized database for the entire state, making the system more efficient and secure. In other words, instead of each of the 17 counties maintaining an individual database, the new system will offer one centralized database for the entire state.

"Nevada is only one of 7 states that still has a bottom-up registration system; all other states have gone to a top-down. One is to build efficiency, but the other is to build consistency. Having 17 different counties, with 17 different systems, we also have the challenges of those old legacy systems from a few weeks ago," said (D) Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar.

Last week, the state and counties conducted a trial election using the VREMS system.

"A system with this magnitude and this size of implementation is going to experience some issues, and that's the point of a mock election," said Aguilar.

Aguilar explained that the mock election was a stress test to ensure the system is ready to go.

"There were a couple of issues that came up. However, with every major system implementation you're going to experience those issues, and they weren't detrimental. They are being fixed and probably will be fixed by Monday," explained Aguilar.

However, as the June primary is approaching, clerks have to meet numerous statutory requirements. This timeline includes a two-week period for them to start the election, particularly for Nevadans serving in the military and living abroad, explained Aguilar. 

The county clerks were not able to disclose the specifics of the issues due to it being proprietary information. However, they did indicate that the general problem was related to data conversion. As a result of this, Cari-Ann Burgess, the Interim Registrar of Voters for Washoe County, along with clerks for rural counties, requested an extension to launch the VREMS.

"Because it wasn't quite ready, knowing that we need to implement 15 or 16 of the state's county systems into one, having that data conversion was a little more difficult than expected, and we want it to be perfect before we go live," said Washoe County Interim Registrar of Voters Cari-Ann Burgess:

The aim was to have VREMS up and running by April 1st, in time to be employed for the June 11th primary. However, the counties will continue to use the old bottom-up legacy system as their primary system in case any further issues arise with VREMS. VREMS will be utilized as a secondary system.

"We're going to try to see if we can do dual-entry, as it's called, so that we can do both systems to make sure that all of our information is in there and in there correctly," said Cari-Ann Burgess,

Once operational, VREMS will significantly reduce the workload of the 15 rural county clerks, who have other jobs in addition to being election clerks.

"I am a combined office treasurer; we do boards, elections, property taxes, and marriage licenses. I could go on, but it's daunting at times, and we don't have that staff. And for elections, I can tell you we have one and a half staff," said Linda Rothery

In 2021, the Nevada Legislature passed AB422 which requires the construction of a centralized, top-down statewide voter registration system. The aim is to make the system more efficient and secure. VREMS is expected to be completed well ahead of the November general election.

"Collectively, we all got together and understood that we all kinda had similar issues, and it's all about perfect execution for us. We can't afford to do this wrong: voter confidence and voter integrity are the most important things that we have, and we can't afford to fail," explained Carson City Clerk-Recorder Scott Hoen.