Hand vote count on hold after Nevada high court says illegal

PAHRUMP, Nev. (AP) — An unprecedented hand-count of mail-in ballots in a rural Nevada county is on hold and may not resume after the Nevada Supreme Court said in an after-hours ruling the current process is illegal and the Republican secretary of state directed the county clerk to “cease immediately.”

Volunteers in rural Nye County had wrapped up a second day of hand-counting the ballots on Thursday by the time the Supreme Court issued a three-page opinion siding with objections raised by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada.

Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, who is in charge of elections and has been been one of the GOP’s most vocal critics of the sort of voter-fraud conspiracy theories that fueled the hand tallying of ballots, said the “hand-counting process must cease immediately.”

She requested in a letter to Nye County Clerk Mark Kampf that he confirm to her office Thursday night that the hand count process “had been stopped.”

Cegavske’s office didn’t immediately respond to requests from The Associated Press for an update. But the ACLU said in a statement that Nye County’s attorneys had informed the organization’s legal staff that “its hand-count process has been shut down.”

“Today is a victory for all who believe in democracy,” said Sadmira Ramic, ALCU of Nevada’s voting rights attorney.

Nye County officials and their lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Cegavske, citing the court’s latest ruling, said in the letter the current hand-count procedure was prohibited at least until after the close of polls on Nov. 8.

She said “no alternative hand-counting process may proceed” until she and the county can determine if there are any feasible alternatives that would comply with the Supreme Court order.

In its three-page ruling Thursday evening, the high court stopped short of ordering a halt to the recount. But the court sided with the arguments the ACLU made in an emergency motion filed earlier Thursday.

The ACLU accused Nye County officials of violating a Supreme Court order issued last week requiring the count to be conducted in a way that prevents public release of early results before polls close to in-person voting Nov. 8.

The ACLU argued that reading candidates’ names aloud from ballots within hearing distance of public observers violates the court rule.

Attorneys for Nye County said in a court filing earlier Thursday that the ACLU was engaging in “political stunts and ‘gotcha’ games.” It asked the court to distinguish between observers verbally describing the “vote count” and observers learning the “election results.”

The high court said the “specifics of the hand-count process and ”observer positioning” in a way that comply with its earlier order was for Nye County and the secretary of state “to determine.”

On the first day of counting Wednesday, The Associated Press and other observers, including some from the ACLU, watched as volunteers were sworn in and split into groups in six different rooms at a Nye County office building in Pahrump, 60 miles (96 kilometers) west of Las Vegas.

ACLU Nevada chief Athar Haseebullah described on Twitter…