Nevada county won’t hand-count in 2024, but some officials support doing so in the future

County commissioners in rural northeastern Nevada passed on submitting a plan to hand-count votes in November on Wednesday, but some officials said they support implementing it in future election cycles in the latest debate over voting machines across the swing state.

Elko County commissioners said it was far too close to the election to implement such a plan — parts of which they acknowledged did not meet state guidelines for hand-counting.

Instead organizers and some officials said they supported lobbying state officials to allow more methods of hand-counting than what are currently outlined in those guidelines, which they say are too arduous, in the future.

Commissioners in the deep-red county of ranches and mining communities have long grappled with the issue. Public comment on election issues in recent years have been marked by election conspiracy theories alleging widespread voter fraud and purported algorithms that alter votes.

“We live in troubled times. Nobody I know trusts elections, machines or the judicial system at this point,” said county resident Vernon Hatch, who helped present the proposal.

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