Voter groups object to proposed Nevada hand-counting rules

RENO, Nev. (AP) — As officials in some parts of rural Nevada vow to bypass voting machines in favor of hand counting ballots this November, the Nevada secretary of state’s office is proposing statewide rules that would specify how to do it, including requiring bipartisan counters, room for observation and how many ballots to count at a time.

On Friday, four voting rights groups came out against the proposal, calling it an “admirable attempt to ensure higher standards” for counting votes by hand, but urging the secretary of state to prohibit the practice outright, noting that the push for hand-counting stems from “unfounded speculation” about voting machines.

“The regulations are not enough to address the underlying accuracy issues and remediate the legal deficiencies of hand count processes,” the groups Brennan Center, All Voting is Local, ACLU Nevada and Silver State Voices said in a statement Friday. Their letter comes ahead of an online hearing Friday afternoon about the regulations.

The debate over how to regulate hand-counting comes after a push for the method in some conservative rural parts of the state where election misinformation has grown.

Mark Wlaschin, deputy secretary of state for elections in Nevada, said the regulations have been in the works for nearly a year and don’t come in direct response to events in Nye County, where the county clerk responsible for administering elections resigned last month after election conspiracies led to a successful push to hand-count votes. Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske is the lone elected statewide official who is a Republican.

“It’s been kind of an ongoing discussion across the nation, really. And as election officials at the state and county level, we try to think ahead,” he said. If approved later this month,...