Concerns are growing across the country about the risk that election deniers will persuade local officials to refuse to certify legitimate voting results. A strange situation In Nevada, a county commissioner refused to certify his victory.
Washoe County Commissioner Clara Andriola won the June primary by about 19 points over her main opponent, Mark Lawson. Lawson requested a recount, which found the original tally to be valid.
But at a committee meeting on Tuesday, Andriola, along with two other Republican committee members, agreed not to certify his own election results.
She said “a lot of information has been shared that requires further investigation” and that after listening to hours of public testimony about the election – including from well-known election conspiracy theorists in the Washoe area – she felt she needed to vote according to her “conscience” and wanted to restore the public’s trust.
But in a statement to CBS News, Andriola said she was required to reconsider her vote on certification at a committee meeting on July 16 before the vote is finalized, per committee rules. She did not comment on why she initially refused to certify the election results.
Washoe County is a key battleground county in Nevada, and polls suggest Nevada could become a battleground state. 2024 Presidential ElectionIt has also become a breeding ground for denial of the election, and the movement Charismatic local Trump supporter.
This week’s vote was the latest sign that local officials may be persuaded by election deniers to delay or withhold certification of election results even when election officials determine there was no fraud or illegality in the election.
“Refusing to investigate the accurate election results as required by law could set a dangerous precedent for Nevada elections,” Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said in a statement about X. “It is unacceptable for any public official to undermine trust in our democracy.”
The Nevada Secretary of State’s Office and state Attorney General Aaron Ford filed a petition in the Nevada Supreme Court on Wednesday, asking the court to affirm the commissioners’ legal obligation to certify the election results, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s office said.
Certifying votes is an administrative process, and local officials have a legal obligation to verify the results of an election. There are few instances in which officials are obligated not to certify, usually only if the votes are successfully challenged in court, which was not the case in Washoe’s election. Certification does not inherently mean that the process was error-free, and some states require certification before a lawsuit can be filed to challenge the results.
But such incidents, which disrupt the routine administrative task of local officials certifying election results, are emerging as a strategy among election deniers in key presidential states across the country. Election experts worry that efforts to disrupt the certification of votes at the local level could portend problems in November’s presidential election, when states have strict deadlines to certify.
“Any effort to delay or obstruct the certification would create chaos and could lead to political violence,” said David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research.
“These attempts to sabotage democracy are exactly what our democratic opponents want, and it appears opponents of American democracy are preparing to use this tactic in November if their candidate loses,” Becker added.
Washoe County officials are not alone in refusing to certify the election. Local officials in battleground states including Michigan and Georgia have recently chosen not to certify their elections, citing concerns about the integrity of the election process and often vocal doubts about the votes raised during public comment.
In May, door-to-door canvassers in Delta County, Michigan, Refusal to certify the recall election Officials ultimately certified the election after a pressure campaign by local election conspiracy activists and after the Michigan State Board of Elections sent a letter to the board saying canvassers would face legal action if they failed to comply with their certification obligations.
And in May, Julie Adams, a Republican member of Georgia’s Fulton County Board of Elections, refused to certify the presidential primary because she wanted to review election data on voter rolls. Adams said not being able to access the primary election data meant she “could not fulfill her oath of office,” according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Adams, who was appointed to the board in February, serves as the regional coordinator for the Election Integrity Network, a powerful national network of right-wing election conspiracy activists led by former President Trump’s legal adviser Cleta Mitchell, who worked on numerous lawsuits aimed at overturning the 2020 presidential election and who Trump called Raffensperger after the election to ask him to “find” the votes he needed to win. EIN Related Organizations They are seeking to disrupt voting and counting through aggressive election monitoring and purging of voter rolls nationwide, which would most likely affect minority and younger voters who tend to vote Democratic.
Back in Washoe, the decision not to certify came as a surprise to Democratic commissioner and chairwoman Alexis Hill.
“I’m shocked and saddened,” Hill said shortly after the vote. “This is not good for our country, this is not good for our democracy.”
“The results of the recount show how remarkably effective the Election Commission is, despite all the pressure it is under,” she said.
