This is fairly long, but illustrative and sad.
Cindy Elgan has overseen elections in rural Nevada without incident for 20 years, but now even her neighbors wonder if she’s part of “the deep state cabal.”
Cindy Elgan glanced into the lobby of her office and saw a sheriff’s deputy waiting at the front counter. “Let’s start a video recording, just in case this goes sideways,” Elgan, 65, told one of her employees in the Esmeralda County clerk’s office. She had come to expect skepticism, conspiracy theories and even threats related to her job as an election administrator. She grabbed her annotated booklet of Nevada state laws, said a prayer for patience and walked into the lobby to confront the latest challenge to America’s electoral process.
The deputy was standing alongside a woman that Elgan recognized as Mary Jane Zakas, 77, a longtime elementary schoolteacher and a leader in the local Republican Party. She often asked for a sheriff’s deputy to accompany her to the election’s office, in case her meetings became contentious.
“Hi, Mary Jane. What can I do for you today?” Elgan asked, as she slid a bowl of candy across the counter.
“I hope you’re having a blessed morning,” Zakas said. “Unfortunately, a lot of people are still very concerned about the security of their votes. They’ve lost all trust in the system.”
“I’d be happy to answer any questions and explain our process again,” Elgan said.
“We’re beyond that,” Zakas said. She reached into her purse and set a notarized form on the counter. Elgan recognized it as a recall petition, a collection of signatures from voters who wanted to remove an elected official from office. It had been more than 20 years since the county’s last successful recall, and Elgan leaned down to study the form.
“Name of public officer for whom recall is sought: Cindy Elgan.”
“Reasons why: Cindy Elgan has run interference in our elections.”
Image
It was an outcome she’d feared for the last three and a half years, ever since former President Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 election, and his denials and distortions spread outward from the White House to even the country’s most remote places, like Esmeralda County. It had neither a stoplight nor a high school, and Elgan knew most of the 620 voters on sight. Trump won the county with 82 percent of the vote despite losing Nevada. In the days after the election, some residents began to suspect that he should have won by even more, and they parroted Trump’s talking points and brought their complaints to the county’s monthly commissioner meetings.
They falsely claimed the election was stolen by voting software designed in Venezuela, or by election machines made in China. They accused George Soros of manipulating Nevada’s voter rolls. They blamed “undercover activists” for stealing ballots out of machines with hot dog tongs. They blamed the Dominion voting machines that the county had been using without incident for two decades, saying they could be hacked with a ballpoint pen to “flip the vote and swing an entire election in five minutes.” They demanded a future in which every vote in Esmeralda County was cast on paper and then counted by hand.
And when Elgan continued to stand up at each meeting to dispute and disprove those accusations by citing election laws and facts, they began to blame her, too — the most unlikely scapegoat of all. She had served as the clerk without controversy for two decades as an elected Republican, and she flew a flag at her own home that read: “Trump 2024 — Take America Back.” But lately some local Republicans had begun referring to her as “Luciferinda” or as the “clerk of the deep state cabal.” They accused her of being paid off by Dominion and skimming votes away from Trump, and even though their allegations came with no evidence, they wanted her recalled from office before the next presidential election in November.
“Prophecy says stand your ground and start in your own backyard,” Zakas said. “I’m sorry it had to come to this.”
“So am I,” Elgan said. She took the recall petition back into her office, and over the next several days she continued to flip through the pages in disbelief. She counted at least 130 signatures, which at first glance appeared to be enough to force a recall election if the signatures and corresponding addresses proved legitimate. Nevada allowed a period of 20 days for voters to reconsider and remove their names from the petition. After that, Elgan’s office would work with the secretary of state to confirm signatures and determine if the petition was successful and whether Elgan still had a job.
Mary Jane Zakas speaking to a friend at the Esmeralda County courthouse.
“This is actually insane,” said Angela Jewell, the deputy clerk. “This is how democracies end. There must be some way to reason with a few of these people.”
“It’s like talking to that wall right there,” Elgan said. “I’ve given them every fact and document known to mankind, and none of it matters. They’re too busy chanting their mantras to stop and listen.”
She wasn’t necessarily surprised by the extent of denial about the presidential election. According to polls, a third of U.S. congressional representatives and more than 60 percent of all registered Republican voters continue to believe President Biden was falsely elected, and even Elgan had wondered about the potential for fraud in other swing states like Georgia or Ohio. She understood how conspiracy theories could grow in places of ignorance — how people could come to doubt or even distrust faraway systems and strangers — but many of the names on the petition were ones she recognized as her friends. “A lot of these people really know me,” Elgan told Jewell, as she scanned again through the list.
Cindy Elgan has overseen elections in rural Nevada without incident for 20 years, but now even her neighbors wonder if she’s part of “the deep state cabal.”
Cindy Elgan glanced into the lobby of her office and saw a sheriff’s deputy waiting at the front counter. “Let’s start a video recording, just in case this goes sideways,” Elgan, 65, told one of her employees in the Esmeralda County clerk’s office. She had come to expect skepticism, conspiracy theories and even threats related to her job as an election administrator. She grabbed her annotated booklet of Nevada state laws, said a prayer for patience and walked into the lobby to confront the latest challenge to America’s electoral process.
The deputy was standing alongside a woman that Elgan recognized as Mary Jane Zakas, 77, a longtime elementary schoolteacher and a leader in the local Republican Party. She often asked for a sheriff’s deputy to accompany her to the election’s office, in case her meetings became contentious.
“Hi, Mary Jane. What can I do for you today?” Elgan asked, as she slid a bowl of candy across the counter.
“I hope you’re having a blessed morning,” Zakas said. “Unfortunately, a lot of people are still very concerned about the security of their votes. They’ve lost all trust in the system.”
“I’d be happy to answer any questions and explain our process again,” Elgan said.
“We’re beyond that,” Zakas said. She reached into her purse and set a notarized form on the counter. Elgan recognized it as a recall petition, a collection of signatures from voters who wanted to remove an elected official from office. It had been more than 20 years since the county’s last successful recall, and Elgan leaned down to study the form.
“Name of public officer for whom recall is sought: Cindy Elgan.”
“Reasons why: Cindy Elgan has run interference in our elections.”
Image
It was an outcome she’d feared for the last three and a half years, ever since former President Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 election, and his denials and distortions spread outward from the White House to even the country’s most remote places, like Esmeralda County. It had neither a stoplight nor a high school, and Elgan knew most of the 620 voters on sight. Trump won the county with 82 percent of the vote despite losing Nevada. In the days after the election, some residents began to suspect that he should have won by even more, and they parroted Trump’s talking points and brought their complaints to the county’s monthly commissioner meetings.
They falsely claimed the election was stolen by voting software designed in Venezuela, or by election machines made in China. They accused George Soros of manipulating Nevada’s voter rolls. They blamed “undercover activists” for stealing ballots out of machines with hot dog tongs. They blamed the Dominion voting machines that the county had been using without incident for two decades, saying they could be hacked with a ballpoint pen to “flip the vote and swing an entire election in five minutes.” They demanded a future in which every vote in Esmeralda County was cast on paper and then counted by hand.
And when Elgan continued to stand up at each meeting to dispute and disprove those accusations by citing election laws and facts, they began to blame her, too — the most unlikely scapegoat of all. She had served as the clerk without controversy for two decades as an elected Republican, and she flew a flag at her own home that read: “Trump 2024 — Take America Back.” But lately some local Republicans had begun referring to her as “Luciferinda” or as the “clerk of the deep state cabal.” They accused her of being paid off by Dominion and skimming votes away from Trump, and even though their allegations came with no evidence, they wanted her recalled from office before the next presidential election in November.
“Prophecy says stand your ground and start in your own backyard,” Zakas said. “I’m sorry it had to come to this.”
“So am I,” Elgan said. She took the recall petition back into her office, and over the next several days she continued to flip through the pages in disbelief. She counted at least 130 signatures, which at first glance appeared to be enough to force a recall election if the signatures and corresponding addresses proved legitimate. Nevada allowed a period of 20 days for voters to reconsider and remove their names from the petition. After that, Elgan’s office would work with the secretary of state to confirm signatures and determine if the petition was successful and whether Elgan still had a job.
Mary Jane Zakas speaking to a friend at the Esmeralda County courthouse.
“This is actually insane,” said Angela Jewell, the deputy clerk. “This is how democracies end. There must be some way to reason with a few of these people.”
“It’s like talking to that wall right there,” Elgan said. “I’ve given them every fact and document known to mankind, and none of it matters. They’re too busy chanting their mantras to stop and listen.”
She wasn’t necessarily surprised by the extent of denial about the presidential election. According to polls, a third of U.S. congressional representatives and more than 60 percent of all registered Republican voters continue to believe President Biden was falsely elected, and even Elgan had wondered about the potential for fraud in other swing states like Georgia or Ohio. She understood how conspiracy theories could grow in places of ignorance — how people could come to doubt or even distrust faraway systems and strangers — but many of the names on the petition were ones she recognized as her friends. “A lot of these people really know me,” Elgan told Jewell, as she scanned again through the list.
