Despite midterm elections being held on November 8th, we are still waiting for results from key counties.
The race in Nevada between republican candidate Adam Laxalt and democratic Senator Catherine Masto has the potential [1] to decide which party controls the Senate. However, the vote count is still trickling in, and suspicious activity is taking place at polling locations in Nevada.
In Washoe County, Nevada, cameras livestreaming the vote-count area went dark Wednesday night. These cameras were down for eight hours and only restored at 8 a.m. Thursday morning. This has conservatives rightly concerned. We remember all too well when hundreds of thousands [2] of votes came in for Biden in the middle of the night during the 2020 election.
As of Saturday, November 12th, republican senatorial candidate Adam Laxalt holds an extremely narrow lead with 48.5% of the vote as compared to Masto’s 48.4%. Masto has continued to gain ground over Laxalt since only mail in ballots remain to be counted.
On the day Washoe’s surveillance cameras turned back on, CNN estimated that there were approximately 120,000 outstanding ballots in Nevada. CNN continues to report that thousands of ballots are streaming in from Nevada’s second-largest county, Washoe [3].
Washoe County spokeswoman Bethany Drysdale gave the following excuse [4] for the vote-count camera blackout:
“The courtesy cameras are connected to a computer application designed for livestream events. They intermittently lose connection with the application. When this has happened before, such as on Election Night when one camera went dark, staff was able to see the disruption and restore it. These cameras are not security or surveillance grade cameras.”
This excuse doesn’t seem reasonable on its face. Going into the midterm elections, Democrats warned that this could be the end of American democracy as republicans would deny election results.
One of the best ways to ensure trust in the election system is to count votes quickly and transparently. Washoe County has failed in both of these areas.
It has already taken nearly a week for Washoe County to count its votes, and it has suffered camera black outs.
Such black outs are unacceptable seeing how Washoe County spokeswoman Drysdale admitted they had already encountered this issue on Election Night. If camera blackouts had occurred in the past, why continue using the same livestreaming system?
As democratic Senator Catherine Masto inches closer to overtaking Adam Laxalt, many conservatives feel uneasy with the state of American democracy.
The mail-in ballot system has turned election day into a weeklong process which breeds increased suspicion as the days go on. This camera blackout in Washoe County only adds suspicions about the prevalence of voter fraud.