Controversial Washoe County elections plan delayed
RENO – The prospects for a controversial Republican-sponsored rewrite of election procedures in Nevada’s second largest county lay in doubt Tuesday following its last-minute withdrawal from the legislative agenda on procedural grounds.
The bundled proposal containing 20 measures – from primarily using paper ballots and not electronic machines to hand-counting of all ballots to posting National Guard members at polling places – came off the Washoe County Commission’s Tuesday meeting agenda at the recommendation of the district attorney, who determined that its introduction last week violated the state Opening Meeting Law.
Submitted Feb. 16 under a request for consideration by Republican Commissioner Jeanne Herman, the item was “submitted the day before the agenda deadline by a commissioner and did not go through the customary agenda review process,” District Attorney Christopher Hicks wrote in a statement distributed Monday. “As a result, the agenda item description does not match the resolution that has been submitted for possible approval and does not adequately describe the possible action to be taken.”
Herman’s proposal came in response to hours of public testimony delivered at a commission meeting earlier this month by residents convinced, despite a lack of evidence, of potential election fraud. It seeks revisions “related to the accuracy, security, and purity of elections” to be implemented by the county registrar of voters ahead of the June primary.
The plan drew immediate condemnation from Washoe County Democrats and voting rights watchdogs. Among other changes, it seeks to require that all poll workers be county residents; that mail-in ballots to be returned by certified mail; and that ballots dropped at collection points be scanned and checked against a voter registration database before being accepted. It would also require issuing differently-colored ballots to same-day registrants.
Herman is one of three Republicans on the five-member commission and represents a sprawling but thinly populated north and northwestern district that spans 89 percent of the county. In her only extensive interview on the subject, she told the Reno Gazette Journal last week that the proposal “may have to go back to the drawing board.”
“The people need to have a voice and to be heard and be satisfied that we have looked at the situation with care and are living up to our jobs,” she told the paper. “The solution is to bring these concerns to the commission to decide what we can legally do.”
Washoe County is almost evenly divided in voter registration, with 33 percent Republicans, 32.5 percent Democrats and 26 percent nonpartisans, according to figures on the county voter registrar’s website. The county has voted for Democrats in recent elections, going for President Joe Biden in 2020, U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen and Gov. Steve Sisolak in 2018 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. But also in 2016, U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto narrowly lost Washoe County to then-Rep. Joe Heck, but won the state because of her strong showing in Clark County. Cortez Masto is running for re-election this year.
Contact Capital Bureau reporter Bill Dentzer at bdentzer@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DentzerNews on Twitter.
Washoe County elections proposal by Steve Sebelius on Scribd
