ACLU asks for investigation of Nevada ballot hand count

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) asked for an investigation Wednesday into what it called a “coordinated partisan” effort during Nye County’s hand count of mail-in ballots. The secretary of state’s office ordered last week that Nye County stop counting until after Election Day in case the results are leaked. The ACLU is bringing the suit because a hand-count volunteer, who happened to be openly carrying a firearm, escorted an ACLU observer from a tally room. The ACLU said the incident raises questions about partisan officials removing observers. But Nye County interim clerk Mark Kampf said that the hand-count volunteer walked the ACLU observer out of the tally room because the ACLU observer was suspected of tallying votes, which is prohibited.

Are other counties hand-counting ballots? Cochise County, Ariz. is also hand-counting ballots while Pinal County, Ariz. rejected the motion Wednesday. The county said it saw no reason to doubt the results from the tabulation machines. The tabulation machines are tested via hand-count audits. One supervisor suggested expanding the audits, but that was rejected as well. The hand count in Cochise County is being challenged in court as illegal.

Dig deeper: Listen to Mary Reichard’s report on The World and Everything in It podcast about political races across the country.