Another mishap delays recount

Wednesday, Nov. 11, 1998 | 11:07 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A computer crash delayed election ballot counting in Washoe County today with Sen. Harry Reid, hanging to a narrow margin over Republican Rep. John Ensign in what has become an unprecedented case.

"It's like a nightmare that never ends," said Kathy Carter, spokeswoman for the county, in talking about the latest mishap that has plagued the recounting of 16,000 ballots since Saturday.

The retabulation was to be completed by 8 a.m. today. But Voter Registrar Laura Dancer said the crash of the computer about midnight will postpone the results. Only about one-third of the ballots had been counted by 8 a.m. She said she "hoped" to have it completed sometime today and in time for the canvass of the Washoe County Commission scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday.

Although no preliminary results have been released, Dancer has said she does not believe there are enough errors in the original count to overturn Reid's apparent victory.

Reid won statewide by 459 votes in the first count the day after the election. But absentee and mail-in ballots in Washoe County were questioned and had to be recounted.

Confusion and delays surrounded the re-count. By state law, it was supposed to be completed in time for the canvass of the county commission Tuesday. But the computer program problems persisted, and the county had to seek an extension from District Judge Janet Berry Tuesday.

Berry said, "We're breaking new ground" and added she could not find a single case in Nevada in which an extension of the canvass was allowed. She gave the county commission until Thursday to canvass the vote.

Troubles experienced in Washoe County is expected to set the stage for Republicans to possibly ask for a recount statewide, request a new election in the county or possibly contest the election in the U.S. Senate.

Former Gov. Bob List, representing Ensign during the Washoe County counting, said there has been "too much confusion surrounding the vote and too much confusion surrounding the computer program" to tally the vote.

He said there's no confidence the final vote will be accurate. "The problems seem to mount by the hour," List said.

Mike Slanker, campaign manager for Ensign, said there's a question about 2,300 absentee ballots that were mailed but never received back. He said the post office may have returned the absentee ballots to the voter because of a mistake on the address. He recalled the Clark County Commission ordered two elections in an Assembly district when there were mistakes in the balloting.

But Steve Walther, who heads the monitoring team for Reid, said there's "no basis to make a claim the vote has been affected adversely because it's taken longer to count." Walther doesn't believe there will be anything to challenge.

Votes from all counties go to Secretary of State Dean Heller's Office for a final canvass by the Nevada Supreme Court on Nov. 25. Ensign will have three working days after that to request a recount. Washoe County was the only one to experience trouble.

Looking on at the process were two representatives of the Republican National Committee and from the Republican Senatorial Committee. But they declined any comment. Representatives also were reported to be present from the Democratic National Committee.

Alex Flangas, an attorney for the Nevada Republican Party said he did not think a law suit was contemplated to challenge the election. He said the GOP was interested in getting the vote counted.

Walther said after the court hearing Tuesday he was pleased the judge extended the time for the vote to be canvassed in Washoe County and this will help ensure there will be an accurate count.

Of the 15,000 votes initially in question, 10,000 were tallied by the computer. But nearly 6,000 had to be hand counted, a process that took 30 hours, rather than the 15 hours estimated. But problems arose in testing the computer program to ensure the accuracy of the vote.

"We ran into trouble right from the start," Dancer said. She had predicted it would take 2-4 hours to pre-test the program. Instead it took more than 12 hours. The program is written to prevent tinkering with election results.

And the program, in the test, would not accept the new results. John Byerly, a member of the Accuracy Certification Board, said the data base had to be modified to get a perfect test. The results from the hand count started being fed into the computer at about 5 p.m. Tuesday.

At the Tuesday court hearing, Assistant District Attorney Madelyn Shipman asked that the canvass deadline be delayed until noon today. But Flangas said it should be extended several days to give the public a chance to look at the ballots before they are canvassed by the county commission.

Judge Berry agreed, saying today was a holiday -- Veterans Day -- and she wanted to make sure the results are accurate. So she extended the canvass deadline to Thursday.

One possibility Republicans reportedly are examining is asking the county commission to refuse to certify the vote and to schedule a new election between Reid and Ensign.

Shipman maintains the county commission is a ministerial body, which doesn't have that power to reject the canvass.

That dispute could end up in court, adding to the turmoil that has surrounded this election so far.