More than a dozen county election administrators in Nevada who are responsible for overseeing the voting process in their counties parrot Trump’s claims of a “rigged” election in 2020 and continue to spread disinformation about election integrity. They include:
- Scott Hoen | Carson City Clerk Recorder
On his campaign site, Scott Hoen includes a section on “election integrity,” which discusses support for voter ID laws and ending mail-in ballots to combat “fraud.” - Walter Nowosad | Douglas County Board of Commissioners (District 5)
According to Rolling Stone, Walter Nowosad shared an article in which indicted lawyer Sidney Powell claimed that Trump’s legal team had uncovered sufficient evidence of voter fraud to overturn the election results in multiple states. Nowosad wrote, “Someone’s hand has been discovered in the cookie jar.” - Danny Tarkanian | Douglas County Board of Commissioners (District 1)
In the wake of the 2020 presidential election, Danny Tarkanian has promoted false claims of voter fraud across multiple social media platforms. A July 2021 tweet makes reference to “one story after another of voting irregularities in Georgia.” Similarly, in November 2022 Tarkanian wrote on his personal Facebook page that mail-in ballots are “the biggest issue in our election integrity, along with ballot harvesting. This is what the GOP should be questioning.” - Rex Steninger | Elko County Board of Commissioners (District 5)
Rex Steninger attended a summer 2021 meeting to discuss strategies for eliminating electronic voting in Nevada. “The ultimate goal is to prove fraud, reverse the recent election laws and have an honest election in 2022,” he wrote in an August 2021 email to a county deputy district attorney. Steninger also signaled interest in conducting an audit of the county’s election results, writing in an email to attorneys from the 2021 meeting, “Let me know if you would like to examine our Dominion voting machines. We can order an examination.” In an October 2021 email obtained through a public records request, he wrote, “I am convinced the last election was stolen and have been involved in every way I can think of to reveal the steal and fix the system.” Following a recount of the gubernatorial race during the June 2022 primary election, Steninger voted against certifying the results, with the meeting minutes specifying that he “voted nay in protest of the State regulation that mandated the way the recount was performed.” - De Winsor | Esmeralda County Board of Commissioners (District 2)
After the June 14, 2022 primary, De Winsor opted to postpone certifying the county’s election results until she and the vice chairman recounted the ballots by hand, despite having results from a machine count and an additional hand count. - Bryan Sparks | Lander County Board of Commissioners (District 1)
In August 2021, Bryan Sparks was one of five Lander County commissioners seeking custody of the county’s 26 electronic voting machines—a violation of federal law—in order to conduct a post-2020 election audit to determine whether they had been tampered with or connected to the internet. The commissioners also discussed their desire to switch from using voting machines to paper ballots exclusively for future elections in Lander County. - Wallace “Junior” Thomas | Lander County Board of Commissioners (District 4)
In August 2021, Junior Thomas was one of five Lander County commissioners seeking custody of the county’s 26 electronic voting machines—a violation of federal law—in order to conduct a post-2020 election audit to determine whether they had been tampered with or connected to the internet. The commissioners also discussed their desire to switch from using voting machines to paper ballots exclusively for future elections in Lander County. - Kathleen Ancho | Lander County Board of Commissioners (District 5)
In August 2021, Kathleen Ancho was one of five Lander County commissioners seeking custody of the county’s 26 electronic voting machines—a violation of federal law—in order to conduct a post-2020 election audit to determine whether they had been tampered with or connected to the internet. The commissioners also discussed their desire to switch from using voting machines to paper ballots exclusively for future elections in Lander County. - Debra Strickland | Nye County Board of Commissioners (District 5)
In 2022, Debra Strickland was one of five Nye County commissioners who unanimously endorsed the use of paper ballots counted by hand in place of voting machines. The original request for the commissioners to vote on the issue points to “concerns about the integrity of the voting process” raised by Nye County voters, almost 70% of whom voted for Trump in 2020 (“a significantly larger percentage than the share of voters registered as Republicans in the county that month: 48%,”) according to The Nevada Independent. The commissioners also pushed to eliminate the use of Dominion Voting Systems machines despite all allegations of fraud after the 2020 election being totally unfounded and disproven. Legal challenges to the county’s plan to count ballots by hand led to a ruling by the Nevada Supreme Court that it was permissible only because the commission confirmed “that the hand count is a secondary counting method and will not be used to report the county’s election results.” - Donna Cox | Nye County Board of Commissioners (District 3)
In 2022, Donna Cox was one of five Nye County commissioners who unanimously endorsed the use of paper ballots counted by hand in place of voting machines. The original request for the commissioners to vote on the issue points to “concerns about the integrity of the voting process” raised by Nye County voters, almost 70% of whom voted for Trump in 2020 (“a significantly larger percentage than the share of voters registered as Republicans in the county that month: 48%,”) according to The Nevada Independent. The commissioners also pushed to eliminate the use of Dominion Voting Systems machines despite all allegations of fraud after the 2020 election being totally unfounded and disproven. Legal challenges to the county’s plan to count ballots by hand led to a ruling by the Nevada Supreme Court that it was permissible only because the commission confirmed “that the hand count is a secondary counting method and will not be used to report the county’s election results.” - Frank Carbone | Nye County Board of Commissioners (District 2)
In 2022, Frank Carbone was one of the five Nye County commissioners who unanimously endorsed the use of paper ballots counted by hand in place of voting machines. The original request for the commissioners to vote on the issue points to “concerns about the integrity of the voting process” raised by Nye County voters, almost 70% of whom voted for Trump in 2020 (“a significantly larger percentage than the share of voters registered as Republicans in the county that month: 48%,”) according to The Nevada Independent. The commissioners also pushed to eliminate the use of Dominion Voting Systems machines despite all allegations of fraud after the 2020 election being totally unfounded and disproven. Legal challenges to the county’s plan to count ballots by hand led to a ruling by the Nevada Supreme Court that it was permissible only because the commission confirmed “that the hand count is a secondary counting method and will not be used to report the county’s election results.” - Bruce Jabbour | Nye County Board of Commissioners (District 1)
In 2022, Bruce Jabbour was one of the five Nye County commissioners who unanimously endorsed the use of paper ballots counted by hand in place of voting machines. The original request for the commissioners to vote on the issue points to “concerns about the integrity of the voting process” raised by Nye County voters, almost 70% of whom voted for Trump in 2020 (“a significantly larger percentage than the share of voters registered as Republicans in the county that month: 48%,”) according to The Nevada Independent. The commissioners also pushed to eliminate the use of Dominion Voting Systems machines despite all allegations of fraud after the 2020 election being totally unfounded and disproven. Legal challenges to the county’s plan to count ballots by hand led to a ruling by the Nevada Supreme Court that it was permissible only because the commission confirmed “that the hand count is a secondary counting method and will not be used to report the county’s election results.” - Jim Hindle | Storey County Clerk Treasurer
In addition to serving as county clerk, Jim Hindle is vice chair of the Nevada GOP. In December 2020, he served as one of Nevada’s six fake electors, a point of pride he used to convince voters to elect him to the clerk treasurer position in 2022. In 2023, a Nevada grand jury indicted him on two felony charges for fraudulently submitting documents to Congress claiming that Trump won the 2020 election. In June 2024, a district court judge dismissed the case against all six fake electors on grounds that the attorney general had filed it in the wrong venue—Las Vegas instead of Reno or Carson City, where the defendants actually gathered to sign the phony documents. Efforts by several progressive groups to get Hindle to step down from his position as an overseer of elections in Storey County have failed, and after the fake electors case was dismissed, renewed calls for his resignation went unheeded. - Clara Andriola | Washoe County Board of Commissioners (District 4)
After the Nevada primary in June 2024, Clara Andriola flip-flopped several times before certifying the results, which included her own primary victory. She initially joined the two Democrats on the commission in voting to certify, telling local media, “We’re not saying that everything was perfect, that there isn’t room for improvement. All we’re saying is this is the election, these are the results.” However, local Republicans alleged that the use of mail-in ballots resulted in fraud. Businessman and vocal election denier Robert Beadles, who backed Andriola’s opponent financially, personally paid $150,000 to have three races recounted. Even though the recounts confirmed the original results, Beadles and other deniers demanded a hand recount or a new election. In response, Andriola reversed her certification vote on July 9, joining Republicans Michael Clark and Jeanne Herman in refusing to certify. She finally agreed to certify a week later, after Nevada’s secretary of state and the county attorney reminded the commission of its legal obligation to do so. - Jeanne Herman | Washoe County Board of Commissioners (District 5)
In early 2022, Jeanne Herman submitted her proposal to institute sweeping reforms to election procedures in the county, including returning to mostly paper ballots, using hand counts only, and posting National Guard troops at all voting sites. She defends the reforms as an effort to “ensure accuracy, security and purity of elections.” Herman also voted against certifying the 2020 and 2022 election results in her county. - Mike Clark | Washoe County Board of Commissioners (District 2)
Mike Clark cast doubt on the validity of President Biden’s 2020 electoral win in a 2022 interview with the Reno Gazette Journal. In March 2022, he shared a Facebook post saying “your vote doesn’t count,” arguing that the 2020 presidential vote in Washoe County was “mathematically impossible,” and claiming that the number of registered voters is greater than the actual population.