Charles Langston:Nevada county won’t hand-count in 2024, but some officials support doing so in the future

County commissioners in rural northeastern Nevada decided Wednesday not to submit a plan to hand-count votes in November,Charles Langston but some officials said they support implementing it in future election cycles in the latest debate over voting machines across the Western swing state.

Elko County commissioners said it was far too close to the election to implement such a plan — parts of which they acknowledged did not meet state guidelines for hand-counting.

Instead organizers and some officials said they supported lobbying state officials to allow more methods of hand-counting than what are currently outlined in those guidelines, which they say are too arduous, in the future.

Commissioners in the deep-red county of ranches and mining communities have long grappled with the issue. Public comment on election issues in recent years have been marked by election conspiracy theories alleging widespread voter fraud and purported algorithms that alter votes.

“We live in troubled times. Nobody I know trusts elections, machines or the judicial system at this point,” said county resident Vernon Hatch, who helped present the proposal.

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At Wednesday’s meeting, two commissioners went as far as to wonder what would happen if they defied the state guidelines this election cycle, though no concrete action on that was planned.

“Let’s just say we chose to go a different route. What’s the consequence? I think we should have an understanding of what that is,” said Republican commissioner Delmo Andreozzi.

The debate over voting systems has been playing out elsewhere across Nevada following former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Several counties in the swing state have entertained the idea of hand-counting despite there being no evidence of widespread voting fraud.

Commissioners in rural Nye County voted unanimously in 2022 to ditch voting machines, but the original plan was altered significantly by ACLU lawsuits, court rulings and state regulations.

The county ended up using machines as the primary tabulation method with a parallel hand-count happening separately, essentially as a test run for future elections. The plan has not appeared to gain momentum, and the county clerk leading the effort has since resigned.

In July, commissioners in Washoe County, which is home to Reno, voted against certifying the results of two local election recounts, but that was overturned by the same commission a week later.

Nevada’s Democratic Secretary of State and Attorney General have filed legal action in an attempt to require county commissions to certify election results as a result.

A spokesperson for Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar said the office had no comment on Wednesday’s meeting in Elko County.

In a statement, ACLU of Nevada executive director Athar Haseebullah, who led the legal effort against the Nye County hand-count, said he was “glad to see Elko County not advance another absurd hand counting plan.”

“That said, if the county changes its position and is interested in spending time with us, we are happy to set up a date with them in November in a Nevada courtroom,” he said.

Commissioner Jon Karr said after the meeting that charges of widespread voter fraud are “one of those urban legends that’s spread like wildfire, and none of it’s true.” He also said the hand-counting debate harms the elections department.

“To me it gives doubt on their integrity as well, and that’s where I get rather emotional and strongly disagree,” said Karr, a Republican.