Major Nevada County Pressured To Rubber-Stamp Election After Delaying Certification To Probe ‘Mishaps’

After the Washoe County Commission refused to certify a recount result following multiple allegations of misconduct, Nevada Democrat officials want to force them to certify the election results anyway.

The July 11 primary races for County Commission District 4 and School Board Trustee District G were contested. The county held two recounts, which showed practically the same results as the primary, with County Commissioner Clara Andriola winning her District 4 race and Perry Rosenstein winning his school board race, according to The Nevada Independent. 

Fellow Washoe County Board of Commissioners Mike Clark and Jeanne Herman voted with Andriola on Tuesday, however, to not certify the recount results of the primaries after allegations of suspicious behavior were made during the public comment portion of the Tuesday meeting.

Andriola reportedly said it was “not the first time that we’ve heard a lot of concerns of procedures, a lot of concerns of alleged mishaps” that she would not certify the recount. “I believe that it warrants further investigation,” she said.

While Andriola — who Herman described to The Federalist as a member that typically sides with the Democrats — won her own race, she cited an election violation complaint filed with the county as her reason for not certifying the results. 

The formal election integrity violation was filed by Briana Foroszowsky, who claims to have observed part of the process.

Foroszowsky alleged she entered the Washoe County Registrar of Voters lobby on May 28, 2024 and observed — through the public observation window — a man by the name of Michael Mulreany. According to the complaint, she allegedly saw Mulreany “remove[] a white device from the workstation that looked like a thumb drive, [stand] up with the thumb drive in hand, turn[] his back to [her], and then [walk] … out of a door that leads to the processing room.” 

According to the complaint, Foroszowsky then spoke with the media specialist from the Registrar of Voters office, George Guthrie, who “explained Mr. Mulreany was uploading the Pre Logic and Accuracy Test” which allegedly “run[s] a couple of weeks in advance to make sure ‘…all Dominion Machines were up to spec whenever they are going out to a vote center…a pretest to make sure they are all accurate.’”

According to the complaint, Guthrie told Foroszowsky that Mulreany was sending the data to the secretary of state’s office and is one of few people with access to that room.

When Foroszowsky asked Guthrie what the device was, he allegedly told her it “would have been all the data that was from our PreLAT.”

Foroszowsky alleged Guthrie “confirmed to [her] the data from the Tabulation Room was on a thumb drive.” Guthrie also purportedly clarified “that the thumb drive was most likely taken by Mr. Mulreany out of the Ballot Tabulation room to his desk and emailed to the Secretary of State’s Office.”

But Foroszowsky claimed it was her “understanding that the election [was] in process and nothing should be uploaded or extracted from the Ballot Tabulation Room at [that] time.”

Herman told The Federalist that thumb drives are “absolutely not” to be used “in any count.” However, Guthrie later reiterated to the Federalist the explanation he allegedly provided Foroszowsky: that thumb drives are permitted to be used.

County officials reportedly said the secretary of state’s office is “looking into” the complaint. The secretary of state’s office has not responded to The Federalist’s request for comment. 

During the public comment portion of the July 9 meeting, several proclaimed Washoe County residents urged the board not to certify the recount results and urged a hand-recount. Under state law, a recount must be conducted “in the same manner in which the ballots were originally tabulated.”

One woman, Val White, alleged that during the election and recount, she saw “multiple thumb drives” being used after she was allegedly told by Washoe County Interim Registrar Cari Ann Burgess that no thumb drives would be permitted.

Robert Beadles — who has “paid about $150,000 for the three recounts,” according to The Nevada Independent — also spoke during the comment period to call for a new election and a hand recount.

Other issues reported with the election included the county elections department sending mail-in ballots to voters who opted not to receive one, The Associated Press reported.

On Wednesday, Washoe County Board of Commissioners Chair Alexis Hill told reporters the board would reconsider whether to certify the recount results. This is scheduled to take place on July 16. 

Following Hill’s announcement, Andriola told The Federalist in a statement on Wednesday: “As Chair Hill indicated earlier today, the canvass of the recount is being put on next week’s county commission agenda for reconsideration at my request before this matter becomes final under our commission rules.”

Despite the concerns, Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar and Attorney General Aaron D. Ford filed a petition with the Nevada Supreme Court to force the county to certify the recount results, arguing Nevada Administrative Code requires counties to certify recount results “within 5 working days after the completion of the recount.” 

Both Aguilar and Ford tried to smear those questioning the administration of the election.

“This week, three county commissioners refused to canvass accurate election results as required by law,” Aguilar said in a statement. “This vote has the potential to set a dangerous precedent for elections in Nevada.”

“When the Board of Commissioners failed to perform its duty to certify the authenticated results of the recount, it failed to meet the expectation of Nevada voters that the election results would reflect the votes of the majority,” Ford said, suggesting the county board was “try[ing] to delegitimize accurate election results or undermine a count of the people.”

Aguilar and Ford’s response comes amind a growing pressure from Democrats to make election certification a “ministerial” task in which elected officials have no choice but to certify even questionable election results. In neighboring Arizona, Attorney General Kris Mayes indicted two Cochise County supervisors in 2023 after they refused to certify their county election results during the 2022 elections following voters’ complaints about the administration of the election. The supervisors, in part, voted for a full hand-count of the election results which was later blocked by a judge, though that was not part of the indictment, according to VoteBeat.

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Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist.

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