In Nevada, an Exercise in Trust and Empathy

The best part about my job as a reporter for The New York Times is that it pushes me far outside of my bubble and into the far-flung parts of the United States. Already this year, I have reported from a remote ice fishing cabin in Minnesota and a dusty border ranch in Arizona. But rarely have I been anywhere as remote as Esmeralda County, Nev., where I spent several days in April and May reporting an article about election denialism that was published online last week.

For the last few months, I have been trying to better understand how widespread conspiracy theories affect the county clerks who run our elections. First, I interviewed dozens of clerks across the country by phone, many of whom recounted their experiences with disinformation and death threats.

Eventually one clerk in Nevada told me about an unusual situation unfolding in tiny Esmeralda County, home to a population of 980. There, a Republican clerk named Cindy Elgan faced accusations from her friends and neighbors of being a “deep state operative” who had skimmed votes away from Donald J. Trump in the 2020 election.

I flew to Las Vegas last month and drove through the desert to the county seat of Goldfield in Esmeralda County, a town with no hotel, stoplight, gas station or daily newspaper within 100 miles.

Esmeralda County is a beautiful place, where wild horses gallop across two-lane roads, and the jagged rock formations of Desert Valley bank up against the snow-capped peaks of the High Sierra. It’s also one of the most desolate places in America, and people tend to be wary of outsiders — especially when those outsiders are a photographer and a reporter for The Times. More than 80 percent of voters in Esmeralda County voted for Mr. Trump in 2020, and many of