Washoe County completes recount; votes announced today

Scott Sonner

Tuesday, Nov. 10, 1998 | 9:56 a.m.

RENO, Nev. -- Washoe County's registrar of voters was confident Sen. Harry Reid's narrow victory would hold up as she prepared today to certify the recount of nearly 6,000 ballots.

About 200 county workers and volunteers finished counting the questionable ballots by hand about 2:30 a.m. today - about 30 hours after the effort began Sunday night.

Laura Dancer, Washoe County Registrar of Voters, said the ballots were being certified and she was confident they would be ready for delivery to the Washoe County Commission late today.

Republican leaders were holding out hope the skewed paper margins on some mail-in ballots could reverse the Democrat's 459-vote advantage and turn Republican Rep. John Ensign into the victor.

"I suppose it's remotely a possibility," Washoe County Registrar of Voters Laura Dancer told The Associated Press.

"But it's so unlikely and the history of Nevada and Washoe County has not been to overturn results. I'd be very surprised if we changed any outcomes," she said Monday.

The final results were expected to be announced at a Washoe County Commission meeting this afternoon.

Dozens of county workers, some of them reassigned from other posts, counted ballots through the night Sunday and Monday at the county registrar's office.

A Washoe County sheriff's deputy kept reporters and others away from the tables where bipartisan teams of three were calling out votes and tabulating them.

Reid remained confident he would prevail, said Steven Walther, a lawyer for the senator.

Officials for both parties, including former GOP Gov. Robert List, were observing the recount at the county registrar's office.

List said Dancer's work was intended to formally certify Washoe County's numbers and that Ensign still would have the option of formally requesting a statewide recount of ballots.

Ensign has not decided whether to seek such a recount if the numbers held up for Reid in Washoe County, List said.

"Let's wait until the results are out. We might be way ahead or we might be way behind," List said Monday.

"What we have here is they are acknowledging mechanical errors on the tabulations. The results were announced but subsequently it was determined there were machines that couldn't pass muster," he said.

Dancer said the problem with the ballots had been discovered after the recount of the absentee and mail-in ballots began Saturday.

About 6,000 of 95,000 ballots cast by county voters last week had printing errors, and election officials decided Sunday to hand count the bad ballots, she said.

Voting machines were unable to accurately read the 6,000 ballots because of the misplacement of copy and inaccurate cutting along edges, she said.

The inaccurate ballots were printed at the county's print shop in a cost-cutting move. Other ballots were sent to an out-of-state firm.

"There was too much margin on one side and not enough on the other side. It caused the ovals to be skewed over a little bit," Dancer said Monday.

But she said the problems were "sporadic, in small numbers."