Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, ordered election officials in Nye County to stop counting ballots by hand until the polls close on Election Day. Her order came after the Nevada Supreme Court issued an opinion that sided with the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposed officials reading individual ballots aloud. Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske attends the National Association of Secretaries of State summer conference in Baton Rouge, La., July 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton, File) NEVADA JUDGE DISMISSES DEMOCRAT’S CLAIM OVER LAS VEGAS COUNTING Cegavske had invited county election officials to improve or better explain the processes involved in their silent count counterproposal in a letter Friday. But the state Supreme Court ruling made it more difficult for Nye County officials to review, submit and get approval for the plans and then execute them for the count. The ACLU and Nye County attorneys have also been embroiled in another dispute related to the ballot count, after an ACLU observer was removed from the count that lasted just two days before Cegavske suspended it Thursday. In this still from the video, Nye County Clerk Mark Kampf, far left, in a suit, swears in a group of residents who will count early ballots by hand in the rural county about halfway between Las Vegas and Reno, Oct. 26, 2022, in Pahrump, Nev. (AP Photo/Gabe Stern, File) Questions remain as to why the observer was turned away from an election official who was openly carrying a weapon. Nye County attorneys alleged the county GOP Central Committee chairman, who was legally armed, acted as a volunteer trained by interim county clerk Mark Kampf when she confronted the ACLU observer. The GOP chairman reportedly believed the ACLU observer was counting the votes, a violation of recount rules. EARLY VOTING NUMBERS FROM THIS BLUE STATE SUGGESTED GOING RED: REPORT The ACLU disputed the charges, and the matter is not expected to be resolved until after the Nov. 8 election, making it unlikely that a hand count will resume before the polls close next week. Cegavske highlighted a number of issues that concerned her about the implicit counting proposal. “There are no provisions in your plan outlining the required use of medical-style gloves to further mitigate the risk of fraud or accidental marking, nor a prescribed and standardized device for counting to ensure that any new mark could be quickly detected,” he said. . Cegavske also expressed concern about the attention any silent meter would require. Nye County instituted a hand count process after concerns about election integrity stemmed from conspiracy theories about the accuracy of ballot counting machines from the 2020 election. People walk along Main drag at the Nye County county seat on July 18, 2022 in Tonopah, Nevada. (AP Photo/John Locher, File) CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP County attorneys wrote a letter calling on Cegavske to launch an investigation into the hand count after the ACLU accused county election officials of a “coordinated partisan election administration effort.” The ACLU reiterated its concerns after the letter. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Caitlin McFall is a reporter at Fox News Digital, covering Politics, US and global news.
