Politics and Policy

Illustration with text that says, “KUNR 2022 Elections.” There is an implied surface with a pencil, a roll of stickers and a ballot box placed on top of it. A Nevada-shaped sticker is on the front of the ballot box.

KUNR 2022 Election Coverage

Stories from the KUNR newsroom and regional partners related to the 2022 elections

Elko County Commissioners discuss distrust in voting machines

KUNR Public Radio | By Nick Stewart

Published October 31, 2022 at 5:15 PM PDT

A voter stands in front of a voting machine.

The Elko County Board of Commissioners passed a proposal during its regular meeting earlier this month to hand-count ballots for the November 8 election; however, it’s too close to the election to change things.

The board spoke of their distrust in the accuracy of voting machines. Commissioner Rex Steninger strongly believes that they can be hacked, which is a common belief held by 2020 election deniers.

“I have about as much faith in these electronic machines as I have in our federal government,” said Steninger.

At this point, Steninger says it’s not possible to have ballots hand-counted with the election quickly approaching, but he wants to restore confidence in voters.

“I think we need to develop some sort of system where we can verify what these machines are telling us,” said Steninger.

In Nye County, their move to hand-count ballots has since been suspended.

This story was produced with assistance from the Public Media Journalists Association Editor Corps funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.