2022 Election: Rural Nevada county ditches voting machines for hand-counted paper ballots – Reno Gazette Journal

People walk along the main drag in the county seat of Nye county, Monday, July 18, 2022, in Tonopah, Nev. The resignation of a county elections clerk in the rural county in Nevada has opened a window on the consequences of unfounded conspiracy theories and raised questions about how local elections will be run when they are overseen by people who don't trust the process. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A sprawling southern Nevada county that embraced misinformation about electronic voting machines is set to conduct its midterm election this fall using hand-counted paper ballots, a county official confirmed Tuesday. 

“This is very locked in,” said newly appointed Nye County Clerk Mark Kampf, a 2020 election denier, of his plans to implement the old-fashioned process in a county with roughly 33,000 active registered voters.

Nye, the largest county by area in Nevada and the third-largest county in the United States, has been at the forefront of the Republican Party’s push to ditch electronic voting — an ongoing effort fueled by former President Donald Trump’s false claims that widespread voter fraud cost him the 2020 presidential election.

Now, less than 50 days before the midterm election, the rural county remains committed to that disinformation campaign despite warnings from experts who say counting ballots by hand could invite more error and fraud.

Read more:Election conspiracies grip Nevada community, sowing distrust

How will vote counting work? 

All active registered voters will still receive a mail-in ballot for the general election, Kampf, the county’s top voting official, said in a presentation Tuesday to Nye’s five-member Board of Commissioners.

But at the polls, according to Kampf, those casting their votes in person this fall will now fill out paper ballots instead of using a touch screen, although one voting machine will be available at every voting site for people with disabilities and “special needs.”

Voters will also have to provide two signatures — one on a card and another on a “signature screen.”

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Nevada’s midterm election is Nov. 8, and early voting runs Oct. 22 to Nov. 4. Kampf said his office will begin counting two days after early voting begins.

Election workers will count the votes utilizing what Kampf called a “parallel tabulation” process with voting machines alongside the hand count.

For the hand count, Kampf said, teams of five will tally batches of 50 ballots at a time.

A slide from Nye County Clerk Mark Kampf's presentation outlining the hand-count process for the 2022 midterm election on Nov. 8.

Each team will consist of a “reader” who will announce the votes on each ballot, a “verifier” responsible for making sure the ballots are read aloud correctly, and three “talliers” who will record the votes. 

Once all 50 ballots have been tallied, the “reader” and the “verifier” will sign off on the batch after double-checking that the votes recorded by the three “talliers” match.

If there are any errors, the team will recount any race with a discrepancy, repeating the process until the votes match.

How long will it take results to be tallied? 

Election experts have warned that such drastic changes to Nevada’s election procedures could have far-reaching impacts, from major delays in results to lower voter turnout and staffing issues at the polls.

Esmeralda, Nevada’s least populous county, for example, spent more than seven hours counting the 317 ballots cast in its June primary election by hand.

Yet Kampf said Tuesday he expects to release preliminary results around 10 p.m. on the night of the election, and estimates the hand-count to be completed between Nov. 10 and Nov. 14. 

To meet those deadlines, Kampf said his office would need to count 40 batches a day.

“In a worst case scenario,” he told commissioners, “I would have to have a minimum of eight teams doing five batches a day per team.”

Kampf was appointed last month to replace longtime clerk Sandra Merlino, who resigned this summer after the county’s Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to endorse hand-counts and paper ballots.

Concern about human error

Merlino, a Republican, expressed concern after the commission’s vote, calling human error during the counting process “a very great possibility”

She said the 2020 election in Nye County was a “free and fair contest.”

Trump won 69 percent of the vote in Nye compared to 29 percent for Democratic President Joe Biden. About 25,500 votes were cast in Nye.

Dig deeper:Election deniers won big in Nevada’s primary. Does it foreshadow a red wave in November?

Republican secretary of state hopeful Jim Marchant, a prominent election denier who has sought to become the face of Nevada’s “Stop the Steal” movement, helped Kampf design the hand-counting plan presented Tuesday.

Marchant has said he hopes to spread the process across the U.S.

Contributing: The Associated Press

Rio Lacanlale is the Las Vegas correspondent for the Reno Gazette Journal and the USA Today Network. Contact her at rlacanlale@gannett.com or on Twitter @riolacanlale. Support local journalism by subscribing to the RGJ today.

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