Elko County Clerk Kris Jakeman said Wednesday that she is happy with the Dominion Voting Systems machines the county has been using, but she will investigate possible alternatives in response to a request from the Elko County commissioners. Lee Hoffman, chairman of the Elko County Republican Party, was at Wednesday’s county commission meeting to ask the county to look into replacing the Dominion machines. He read a resolution approved by the Elko County Republican Party. “Whereas there is evidence of vote count tampering in places where Dominion voting machines have been used, especially in metropolitan areas in swing states,” the resolution says, “the Elko County Republican Party … strongly urges the Elko County Board of Commissioners and the Elko County Clerk to investigate alternatives to the Dominion voting machines currently in use in Elko County and to cancel the contract with Dominion if necessary …” The resolution also says the Elko County Republican Party “recognizes that implementation of alternatives would have associated costs, but asserts that election integrity is worth finding the necessary funding …” Hoffman said this request does not question the quality of the elections in Elko County.
Nevada: Frayed Trust Frustrates Some Rural Election Officials | Colton Lockhead/Associated Press
In deep-red Republican rural Nevada, longtime election officials are fighting back against a right-wing conspiracy-fueled push to turn back the clock on elections and return to hand counting paper ballots. For some, the fight is paying off. For others, pleas have fallen on unsympathetic ears. Since the late 2021, seven of Nevada’s 17 counties have considered either switching away from Dominion electronic voting machines, which have come under fire from election deniers following the 2020 election, or eliminating electronic voting systems altogether in favor of paper ballots and hand counting, a move that local election officials argue would only create more distrust, uncertainty and delays in the election process. Two counties, Nye and Esmeralda, are asking their clerks to conduct the 2022 elections using paper ballots and hand count the results, a move that was presented to the commissioners by Jim Marchant, a former Republican assemblyman now running for Nevada secretary of state, who has been peddling debunked voter fraud claims since losing a bid for Congress in 2020. The decision blindsided longtime Nye County Clerk Sam Merlino, a Republican and the county’s top election official since 2000. “I literally wanted to resign that day. After doing it for so long, you’d think people would have a little trust in you,” Merlino told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in a recent interview.
Full Article: Frayed Trust Frustrates Some Rural Nevada Election Officials | Colorado News | US News