KVIG Informative

A week after Nevada’s midterm election, the Secretary of State’s office announced a new Tribal Liaison whose first task was reaching voters before anyone finished counting ballots.

The Nevada Secretary of State’s Office announced Margaret Scharmann, who is Yaqui and Hopi, as its new Tribal Liaison, with the announcement timed to the start of Native American Heritage Month.

Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said the office is committed to strengthening relationships with Nevada’s tribal nations across voting access, economic development and consumer protection, and that Scharmann had already begun outreach across tribal communities ahead of this month’s general election.

Scharmann previously served as the Students in Transition Coordinator for the Churchill County School District, where she worked with homeless students and families, and co-led the district’s Title IV Indian Education program alongside Native students, families and the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe’s Community Learning Center.

Aguilar described the liaison role as centered on building relationships, listening to community needs and helping families navigate public services, rather than a narrowly defined administrative position limited to elections alone.

The announcement comes as Nevada’s Department of Native American Affairs has separately worked to expand its own tribal engagement efforts this year, including the appointment earlier in 2026 of a dedicated Tribal Health Authority Council Coordinator and publication of the department’s first strategic plan.

Roughly 90,000 Indigenous people live across Nevada, according to the Department of Native American Affairs, spread across the state’s federally recognized tribes and bands, each with its own government structure and relationship to state agencies.

A liaison position is only as useful as what the office actually does with it. Scharmann’s first assignment — reaching tribal voters before a statewide election most Nevadans were only beginning to pay attention to — suggests the Secretary of State’s office intends to treat the role as more than a title.