Electric smoker won't heat up

From what I've found this smoker appears to be the same as ones sold by Masterbuilt and Cajun Injector, it has an electronic display for setting cooking time and temperature. It suddenly stopped working because the heating element is not supplying any heat. The control panel light comes on when you push the on button but the light that indicates heating does not come on when turning up the temperature. I have checked with a meter and I have power (120 volt) into the circuit board and power going out to the heating element. One lead goes directly to the heating element (120 volt, 650 watts) and the other lead goes to a thermostat and then to the other terminal of the heating element. I have checked the voltage from both terminals of the heating element to the ground and they both show 120V. I have checked the continuity and ohms through the heating element and they show 21 ohms which I believe is correct, so I don't understand why the element isn't heating. Most of the problems I've seen for these units involved corroded or burnt wires where they connect to the heating element. I'm wondering if it could be a switch that turns the power to the element on and off to maintain the set temperature but I don't know how to check that or repair it. I would really like to fix this but I can't even find replacement parts. Any help would be greatly appreciated. If all else fails I'm thinking of retrofitting it with a universal heating element with a dial temperature control and that plugs directly into a 120 volt outlet. It is larger (1500 watt) but i think it would work as long as I kept it on a lower setting.