Elected officials of one of the rural southern Nevada counties have stated that they require paper votes, and for these to be counted by hand while general and primary elections take place this year. This is despite the top elections official saying Wednesday that she does not have regulations to follow, and can’t straight away commit sufficient supplies or staffing.
“It would be physically impossible for me to implement this for the (June 14) primary election,” said Sandra Merlino, Nye County Clerk, subsequent to the unanimous vote which endorsed the measures. “I have made a commitment to look at it.”
Merlino is an elected official who has remained in her current job since 2000, and carries the authority to reject or accept whatever the five-member commission recommends.
It followed several speakers’ presentations on unproven conspiracies as well as doubts regarding the 2020 election results, per media reports.
Strickland refrained from immediately responding to the telephone message from AP on Wednesday.
After the commission action, Nye County is now the latest Nevada jurisdiction, as well as among several other electoral states, in which GOP senators have moved to place a ban on electronic tallies and balloting.
Last month in Washoe County, Reno, commissioners presented a sweeping proposal which mainly spoke about returning to paper ballots, as well as posting National Guard troops at the voting sites in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the northern part of Nevada. The local DA stated he had to review the idea’s legality.
Some of the commissioners were hesitant, and the state’s largest casino union, which represents 60,000 workers, stated that having soldiers standing around at polls would deter Indigenous and Black voters from casting ballots. A front-page editorial was printed on the Reno Gazette Journal saying such a move could end up costing taxpayers “millions of dollars to chase down Facebook rumors of illusory election fraud.”
Some advocates of hand counting have mentioned mistrust when it comes to election results in the midst of continuing false narratives that extensive fraud has cost President Donald Trump his projected victory in the presidential election of 2020.
Emily Persaud-Zamora, who heads an activist progressive group names Silver State Voices, stated Wednesday that switching to paper ballots could drive up poll lines, and that hand-counting would hold up results. “Voter suppression is rooted in restricting the access for eligible voters to cast their ballots,” she said. “These proposed tactics aim to disenfranchise voters and do nothing to make our elections safer.”
Merlino, who is a Republican, stated the Nye County 2020 election was “free and fair”. “All pre-tests and post-tests were accurate,” she said, and added, “The votes were definitely along party lines.”
Nye County mainly voted for Trump (69%), as opposed to Biden (29%). Around 25,500 votes were cast in one of the largest geographic counties in the nation. It’s the place where the old Nevada Test Site is located, and is home to around 50,000 people. Most of the latter live in Pahrump, which is located 60 miles from Vegas; and Tonopah, a place over two-hours to the north if you chose to drive.
Throughout the state, over 1.4 million people voted, with Biden winning the state by around 2.4%, or 33,596 votes. Lawsuits came up which challenged the results, but these were dismissed.
The top election official in Nevada, Barbara Cegavske — also a Republican — repeatedly stated that no evidence had been found of extensive voter fraud, pertaining to the 2020 election.
Merlino promised that in coming months, she would provide info to the commissioners of Nye County regarding the resources that would be needed to hand-count ballots come November. She expects to require at least roughly double the number of people she already hires for the job.
Early primary voting is set to begin May 28, and with that in mind, Nye County is set to send out over 30,000 ballots in the intervening weeks. Merlino said switching to paper completely might require her team to order 20,000 ballots so that there would be enough present at the polls. According to her, human counting error is “a very great possibility.”
“There are no laws or regulations in our state addressing all-paper ballots, a hand count, and meeting all of our statutory requirements by conducting a hand count,” she told the Associated Press. “Right now, that is my main concern.”