PAHRUMP, Nev. • Ballot counting began slowly Wednesday in a Nevada jurisdiction where officials citing concerns about voting machine conspiracy theories pressed forward with an unprecedented hand tally of votes cast by mail in advance of Election Day.

One group of five people working in a room witnessed by The Associated Press tallied 50 ballots in three hours and nine minutes in Nye County, where about 33,000 people are registered to vote. Similar groups of five people worked in five additional rooms in a county office building in Pahrump, 60 miles west of Las Vegas.

The county reported that almost 1,100 ballots had been cast by mail and in-person as of Tuesday.

“It will get better,” interim Nye County Clerk Mark Kampf told the group — one reading names aloud, a verifier looking over her shoulder and three talliers marking sheets of paper — sitting around a wooden table. A sign next to a video camera above them urged them to “FOCUS, FOCUS.” Kampf said the next batch of ballots to be counted would be 25 at a time, instead of 50.

The county received guidance from the state Supreme Court last Friday for counting to start Wednesday — if officials prevent public release of early results in any race and only release video of the count after polls close on Nov. 8.

The county on Monday scrapped a plan to livestream the count, and the Nevada secretary of state’s office was still reviewing the plan when Kampf swore in the first shift of 30 people for the morning count. A similar afternoon shift began after 1 p.m.

“I’ve got a job to do here, which is a hand-count,” Kampf said at the start.

He said county attorneys were to communicate with secretary of state officials following the Nevada Supreme Court ruling.

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m moving ahead with a compliant hand-count process,” he said.

Nye County is a scrub brush-dotted old silver mining region now home to about 50,000 residents between Las Vegas and Reno. It is best known as the home of the nation’s former nuclear weapons test site.

Nevada is home to one of the most closely watched U.S. Senate races in the country, as well as high-stakes contests for governor and the office that oversees elections.

The secretary of state’s office said Nye County had to split teams into separate rooms so anyone observing the count of early in-person and mailed ballots would not know the “totality of returns.” Participants were not identified for the media.

The group observed by AP found during their first 30 minutes that they had mismatched numbers for eight candidates. A recount took nearly 40 minutes, and two of the recounts still had different outcomes.

“That’s going to be my new name. Mismatch,” said one of the talliers.

“It’s our first day, don’t feel bad,” the verifier replied. “As long as we catch ’em.”

Observers also must sign a form saying they won’t release results they overhear. Anyone who does so could be charged with a gross misdemeanor.

The hand-count of paper ballots will run parallel to the county’s machine tabulation process.

In this image from video, Nye County Clerk Mark Kampf, far left, in suit, swears in a group of residents Wednesday who will hand count early ballots cast in the rural county about halfway between Las Vegas and Reno in Pahrump, Nev. Nye is the largest county in the U.S. to attempt a hand count of its ballots in the midterm elections, a change fueled by conspiracy theories about voting machines.

the associated press