TONOPAH, Nev. (AP) – The Nye County Commission is used to dealing with all sorts of hot-button controversies.
Water rights, livestock rules and marijuana licenses are among the many local dramas that consume the time of the five commissioners in this vast swath of rural and deeply Republican Nevada. Last spring, it was something new: voting machines.
For months, conspiracy theories fueled on social media by those repeating lies about former President Donald Trump’s loss in 2020 inflamed public suspicions about whether election results could be trusted. In response, the commission put a remarkable item on its agenda: Ditch the county’s voting machines and instead count every vote on every ballot – more than 20,000 in a typical general election – entirely by hand.
Commissioners called a parade of witnesses, including three from out of state who insisted voting machines could be hacked and votes flipped without leaving a trace. They said no county could be certain their machines weren’t accessible via the internet and open to tampering by nefarious actors.
It was all just too much for Sam Merlino, a Republican who has spent more than two decades administering elections as the county’s clerk. She simply felt outgunned.