Elected officials from Nye County in Nevada want manual counting of paper votes in 2022 general elections and primary elections. The demand comes despite their top electoral official Barbara Cegavske saying that she cannot instantly commit enough supplies or staffers and that there are no regulations for her to follow.
Clerk Sandra L. Merlino of Nye County stated that it would not be possible for her to implement the endorsement for the primary election in June this year. Nevertheless, Merlino said that she has made up her mind to explore it. Her statements followed the unanimous vote of the Republican County Commission endorsing the electoral measures.
Merlino has been serving as a Nevada elected official since 2000 and is authorized to reject or accept the endorsement of the commission.
As per media reports, the endorsement came after presentations from many speakers about unsubstantiated conspiracies and uncertainties regarding the 2020 presidential election results.
Commission member Debra Strickland demanded the vote, stating that she wished to reassure Nye County constituents that their voices are heard and that their votes are properly recorded.
Strickland refused to respond to a telephonic message that came from The Associated Press (AP).
The commission’s action caused Nye County to be a new jurisdiction of Nevada and many other battleground states in which Republicans have taken measures to prohibit electronic voting and tallies.
Washoe County Commission members tabled a proposal to reinstate mostly paper votes and put National Guard service people at voting locations in northern Nevada’s largest metro area. The local DA stated that he should review the quality of the electoral idea being in line with the law.
Some commission members in Nevada are unwilling to accept the idea. At the same time, the largest union in the US state for casino workers stated that having troops at poll locations would dissuade Indigenous, Black and other non-white voters from casting their ballots. As per a recent Reno Gazette-Journal editorial, the move is likely to cost taxpaying citizens millions of US dollars to pursue Facebook speculations of election fraud.
A few advocates of manual counting cite mistrust of electoral results amid false notions about erstwhile President Trump losing due to widespread election fraud.
Emily Persaud-Zamora of Silver State Voices stated that a move to paper votes would mean more lines at poll locations and that manual counting of votes would delay election results.
Persaud-Zamora regards voter suppression as an issue rooted in limiting the access to cast ballots for eligible constituents. She stated that the proposed strategies look to disenfranchise constituents and would not do anything to make Nevada’s elections safer.
A Republican Party member, Merlino described the 2020 presidential election in the county as a fair and free event with accurate tests before and after it.
A vast majority of people in the county voted for Trump over Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden. Around 26,000 votes were made in Nye County, which is among the largest geographical counties in the United States of America. Nye County has the erstwhile location for testing nuclear weapons. Almost every Nye County resident lives in Pahrump and Tonopah.
Over 1 million people cast their votes in Nevada. Biden won the state by around 34,000 votes. Lawsuits that challenged the results from the Republicans were dismissed.
Cegavske stated that she did not find any piece of evidence substantiating widespread fraud in that election.
Meanwhile, Merlino promised that she would soon offer Nye County Commission members information about the resources that she would have to manually count paper votes in November. Merlino stated that she expected that she would have to hire around 100 people for elections alone.
Primary voting is set to begin on May 28, 2022, so the county plans on sending out over 30,000 ballots soon. Merlino stated that all-paper ballots might result in a requirement for a further 20,000 ballots so that there could be enough ballots for the polling locations. She also stated that there is a great possibility for human error in the counting process.
As for Merlino, Nevada has no regulations or rules about paper ballots, manual counting and satisfying all its statutory requirements through the said process.