Ensign files request for statewide recount

Thursday, Dec. 3, 1998 | 11:25 a.m.

About a half-hour before Wednesday's 5 p.m. deadline, a worker from Rep. John Ensign's office filed for a statewide recount in Ensign's 401-vote loss to incumbent Sen. Harry Reid.

The request was made in the Las Vegas office of the Secretary of State's in the Sawyer state office building at 555 E. Washington Ave.

Ensign has said that he feels that the election was just too close not to ask for a recount.

The recount request comes on the heels of complaints by Republicans about the ballot counting in Washoe County. There were allegations votes were miscounted, ballots were missing and that some of the ballots were improperly printed so the machines could not read them correctly.

Washoe Voter Registrar Laura Dancer said she plans to recruit up to 50 people to help with the recount, which tentatively will start Dec. 7. It would have to be completed by midnight Dec. 11.

She said if the precincts selected by Ensign include any of the nearly 6,000 ballots that had to be hand-counted due to printing and cutting errors, those ballots will be duplicated onto a blank ballot and then be tallied with the rest of the sample.

Previously, she said that there may be some minor differences from the certified count, but not enough to overturn the election. After the election, Dancer submitted her resignation but will remain on the job through the recount. She is taking a job in the personnel department of the county where she formerly worked.

Ensign also filed a motion in district court in Reno Wednesday seeking a recount of all the ballots cast in Washoe County, instead of the 16 precincts. Ensign's lawyer Alex Flangas said only a hand-count of all the ballots would ensure an accurate tally.

District Judge Janet Berry did not agree to the motion. But Flangas has indicated he will bring a new suit today to change the recount procedure in Washoe County.

Secretary of State Dean Heller directed Dancer to make duplicates of the nearly 6,000 faulty ballots that were misprinted and misshaped. There was not an accurate count when they were run through the computer the first time. So they were hand-counted.

Flangas sought to stop the duplication of these ballots during the recount. He said there is no law that permits this. The GOP strategy is to force a recount of all the ballots in Washoe County, not just the selected precinct.

The law says if there is a 1 percent difference in the recount of the selected precincts and the vote that was certified earlier, there must be a hand count of the full county. Running the defective ballots through the computer, rather than a valid duplicated ballot, was help assure there is a different in the two totals. And this could accomplish the Republican goal of a full recount. Thomas Wilson, an attorney for Reid, said it appears Ensign is "more interested in confusing the process than letting a clean, quick and hassle-free recount process go forward."

Sun staff writer Jace Radke contributed to this report.