Three Republican commissioners in a key Nevada swing county have refused to certify on an election recount, creating new turmoil in a community that since the 2020 election has been a hotbed for election skepticism, misinformation, and vitriol against public officials.
The members make up a majority of the Washoe County Commission, a five-member board in the Reno area that signs off on all election results in the county and will be responsible for holding a similar vote after the Nov. 5 presidential election.
The secretary of state and attorney general said Wednesday night the commissioners have failed to uphold a nonpartisan law and are asking the Nevada Supreme Court to require the entire county commission to meet their legal obligations and certify the results.
“It is unacceptable that any public officer would undermine the confidence of their voters,” Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, a Democrat, said in a statement. “The importance of this issue cannot be overstated.”
Washoe County is the second-largest county in the Silver State, and, along with Clark County around Las Vegas, it will determine which presidential candidate wins the swing state’s electoral votes. The county is a battleground split roughly evenly among Republican, Democratic, and independent voters.
“The most conservative counties in our state have never done this,” said Alexis Hill, the Democratic commission chair who voted for certification. “This is unprecedented, truly going against democratic norms.”
Recounts were for unsuccessful Republicans
The vote Tuesday was against certifying recounts for a Washoe County Commission Republican primary and a nonpartisan school board primary, both on June 11. The recounts were requested by a Republican who lost to incumbent Commissioner Clara Andriola and a right-leaning candidate in a crowded nonpartisan primary. Both got funding from local activist Robert Beadles.
Beadles is a wealthy businessman and major donor to the local Republican Party who for the past three and a half years has led a pressure campaign against county officials who do not agree with his view that elections are rife with fraud.
“It was, in my opinion, his opportunity to create chaos in the (voter registrar’s) office,” Hill said. “He asked for hand counts as part of the recount which you can’t do because you have to count it in the same way that you counted the original election.”
There were administrative issues with the election. During early voting in May, the county identified a printing error that meant some people in a small precinct may have needed to re-vote. Later, the voter registrar’s office took longer than anticipated to count ballots because the tabulation machines broke. There were no errors or discrepancies in the recount, according to interim Washoe County voter registrar Cari-Ann Burgess.
Aguilar also defended the voter registrar’s office, saying they “worked long days and nights to meet all of their legal obligations” and said “Nevadans who took the time out of their lives to fulfill their civic duty and vote in these June Primaries deserve finality in this election and the assurance that their voices were heard.”
Beadles, who was unable to be reached for comment, told the commission Tuesday that he had an analysis from a mathematician and an artificial intelligence supercomputer showing it was highly unlikely that his candidates lost their elections.
“Our 2024 election was rigged,” he said. “It’s fraudulent.”
A key swing vote switches
The Washoe County Commission has two Republican members who in the past voted against certifying elections, Michael Clark and Jeanne Herman. But this was the first time that Andriola, the commission’s swing vote, sided with the other two.
The local Republican Party disowned Andriola in January, and multiple Republicans ran against her in a June primary, based largely on her views on election administration. She fended off that challenge by a wide margin, but her top opponent, Mark Lawson, sought the recount. Lawson lost the recount, too, leaving Andriola to decide whether to certify her own victory.
On Tuesday, dozens of members of the public held signs and spoke for hours against certifying the recount in the commission chambers. The commission abruptly stopped the meeting when a man started cursing at them from the podium.
Some wanted the votes counted by hand, an idea that has become popular on the far-right. But Nevada law requires recounts to be performed by the same method that the original election was tallied, which in this case meant machine tabulation.
“There’s a lot of information that has been shared that in my opinion warrants further investigation,” Andriola said before voting against certification. She added, “It’s not a reflection of anything intentional. I am not an election denier.”
Andriola, Clark and Herman did not respond to USA TODAY’s interview requests on Wednesday.
Re-vote coming
Assistant District Attorney Nate Edwards told the USA TODAY Network Tuesday that the secretary of state could now vote whether to certify the victory. Edwards said if the office did not do so, the matter could wind up in court. That’s exactly what’s happened.
Aguilar teamed up with Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat, and went to court. Ford said his office would “defend Nevada’s elections against anyone who might try to delegitimize accurate election results or undermine a count of the people,” and “will never hesitate to join the secretary of state in protecting Nevada’s elections.”
Hill said Andriola approached her after Tuesday’s vote and requested reconsideration at their July 16 meeting. Hill said she put the item on the agenda and that her colleague “did see the light.”
If Andriola returns to voting with Democrats on certification, there will still be one more battle on the horizon: A Nov. 5 election for Hill’s seat. She’s up against Beadles-backed Republican Marsha Berkbigler.
“The saga is not over, but it’s not good,” Hill said. “This is an unprecedented, really upsetting display of elected officials.”
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