The words, handwritten on signs, flashed passing cars.

“WASHOE COUNTY ELECTION FRAUD CENTRAL”

“WE DEMAND HAND RECOUNT NOW!!”

Some drivers honked while others flipped middle fingers at the more than two dozen protesters outside the Washoe County Administration Complex the morning of July 9.

The protesters were calling on commissioners in Nevada’s second largest and only swing county to refuse to certify the results of a recount of the June primary.

The recount did not change the results of either of the primary races, but at the commission meeting that day, protesters alleged fantastical claims of election fraud, applauded those who agreed with them and booed opponents. The commission chair occasionally admonished the group, even threatening to go into a recess when commenters lobbed verbal attacks.

Five hours later, they cheered the three Republican commissioners on the five-member board for voting not to certify the recount results. 

That vote placed Washoe in dubious company — making the county one of at least 25 jurisdictions since 2020 (and the third county in a battleground state this year) where officials overseeing election certification processes have voted not to do so, often citing unsubstantiated accounts of election fraud. 

Certifying, or canvassing election results, is an important procedural step for officially declaring the winner of an election — though media outlets project winners and candidates often declare victory on or shortly after Election Day based on preliminary vote totals. Elections are only considered complete once a county commission votes to canvass the results.

Historically, these votes to certify election results have been perfunctory, but ever since former President Donald Trump began espousing conspiracy theories about massive voter fraud in the 2020 election, adherents have sought to hijack the canvassing process as a way to further sow doubt in election systems.  

Though many Republican candidates have turned away from the so-called “Big Lie” this election cycle, pressure is still mounting on the veracity of the state’s election system thanks to individuals such as far-right activist and wealthy cryptocurrency investor Robert Beadles, who promoted the protest on his blog and spent more than $150,000 on the recounts. 

Beadles — who also paid for a recount in the 2022 GOP gubernatorial primary and has filed multiple lawsuits alleging a vast conspiracy in how Nevada elections are run — celebrated the commission decision and declared “We Won A Battle” on his blog.

Ultimately, the commission’s decision not to certify the recount was a short-lived victory for the protesters. 

Criticism of the commission’s decision quickly mounted from voting rights advocates, and two top state officials filed a petition with the state Supreme Court requesting it compel the board to certify the results or face legal consequences.

One week later, the board met to reconsider its decision not to certify the primary election recount results and certified the recount in a 4-1 decision.

“What happened in Washoe isn’t isolated and it was harmful to the process,” said Lizzie Ulmer, senior vice president of strategy and communications at the nonpartisan States United Democracy Center. “But what happened in Washoe should also be a warning call to other local officials considering failing to do their jobs or buckling to the pressures of election deniers: It won’t work. The law and the will of the people will prevail.”

But with Trump on the ballot again in 2024 and another close election likely in Nevada, experts fear that what happened in Washoe may be a precursor to even more pressure being placed on a beleaguered election system.

“It moves really quickly into a situation where people just don't believe that the elections are fair,” UNLV political science professor Rebecca Gill said. “That's how you lose democracy.”

The proper arena

Former Republican Gov. Robert List, the co-leader of RightCount Nevada — a new Republican-led nonprofit seeking to restore faith in the election system — described the commission’s refusal to certify the recount as a “rogue move.”

Under Nevada Administrative Code, counties’ governing bodies have a statutory obligation to certify election results, specifying that any recount election “must be canvassed within 5 working days after the completion of the recount.”

“Thankfully, [the decision not to certify] was put right,” List said in an interview. But he warned that moves like this could increase distrust of the election system.

“It's paramount that everyone involved in that process of carrying on an election system be scrupulous in what they do,” List said. “Democracy depends on citizen participation.”

Hannah Fried, the executive director of the progressive nonprofit voting rights organization All Voting is Local, said that Washoe and other counties not certifying the election this cycle is “shocking” and “unprecedented.”

“To refuse to certify is not only violative of [commissioners’] duties, and their oath, it goes against state laws,” Fried said. “And there's no basis to do so.”

In their petition to the state Supreme Court, lawyers with the attorney general’s office wrote that canvassing election results is a mandatory duty of county commissions who are only afforded the opportunity to correct “clerical errors.”

“They entail no exercise of discretion,” the filing states. “And there are no circumstances in the statute or regulation under which the [county commission] may simply decline to canvass.”

As Republican Washoe County Commissioner Mike Clark, who initially decided not to certify the recount and who reversed course a week later “under extreme duress,” said ahead of his revote: “There is nothing in the statute that allows a commissioner to question the validity of the results.” 

Gill said county commissioners are not often election law experts.

“These are regular people who get elected to these boards and there is a learning curve,” Gill said, noting that the proper arena for contesting elections is in the court system.

“The judge does have the ability, in these hearing settings, to be able to hear testimony from different kinds of experts and to gather information, to be able to make a determination about the veracity of these issues,” she said. “That court would have the jurisdiction to direct the other branches of government to deal with anything that they found actually problematic in the election outcome.”

Addressing growing distrust

Sporting a red ballcap with the words “MAKE ELECTIONS FAIR AGAIN” emblazoned across the front in white embroidery with stars and stripes screen printed on the hat’s bill, Val K., a former Washoe County resident who now lives in Douglas County, walked up to the dais during the commission’s meeting last week.

K. said her comments were directed at the “shyster committee member,” a reference with antisemitic undertones to Clara Andriola, a Republican commissioner who had initially voted not to canvass the results, but later called for the reconsideration vote. Andriola is a Catholic who recently campaigned for prayer to be added to meetings

“You’ve only proven to everyone that you don’t have a moral compass at all, your words last week were, ‘there has to be trust.’ Yes there does,” K. said. “Your recanted vote decision is yet another prime example of why you, for one, can’t be trusted.”

Gill, who has analyzed the Washoe County election results, said there’s no evidence the election was not fair.

“It's heartbreaking to me because I've looked at data, and if there was some sort of election fraud, that's not anywhere in any of these numbers,” Gill said.

But the outcome of the revote didn’t completely satisfy her because it left skeptical voters such as K. with the erroneous impression that there’s “something even more devious going on” than the commission failing to certify the vote.

It’s why the secretary of state’s office noted in its legal filing to the state Supreme Court that the vote not to certify “erodes public confidence in elections daily” and negatively affected the office’s ability to carry out and enforce election laws.

Further muddying the waters is a supposed election fraud report promoted by Beadles and authored by Edward Solomon, an amateur mathematician and election conspiracy theorist who, since 2020, has claimed that elections in key states and counties are rigged by an algorithm — allegations that have been disputed or debunked by outside experts, including those in Nevada. 

Beadles defended Solomon and criticized the county and media in a lengthy email to The Nevada Independent, writing in part that state officials had opted to “threaten three county commissioners with criminal prosecution and removal from office if they didn’t certify the fraud.”

Gill said it’s difficult to explain complicated statistical analyses in plain language, but it’s made all the more difficult by efforts to put a veneer of scientific methodology on baseless claims of fraud.

“[The former president] created the demand for this supply of pseudoscience evidence,” Gill said. “How do you unwind that?”