Washoe Couny on target to complete ballot count today

Scott Sonner

Wednesday, Nov. 11, 1998 | 8:56 a.m.

RENO - A new round of computer glitches forced county employees to work through today's holiday to certify thousands of ballots that have kept Sen. Harry Reid's re-election in limbo for more than a week.

Washoe County officials were forced to get court approval on Tuesday to miss a midnight deadline for completion of the ballot certification, but the county registrar seemed confident about getting final results today.

"We're still on target for today," Laura Dancer said early this morning.

"I can't give you a target time today," she said. "I can say today with a certain amount of certainty.

"The data entry process is slower than we'd like it to be, but it's important that we take the time to do it accurately."

Despite the problems, Reid, D-Nev., remained confident his 459-vote margin would hold up against Republican Rep. John Ensign and Dancer was sticking with her prediction that only a few tallies would change.

"We will have people working around the clock until the problems are solved," Washoe County Manager Katie Simon said.

A Washoe District judge who earlier set a deadline of 12:01 a.m. Wednesday for the final results agreed to give the county until noon on Thursday to complete the work if necessary.

"This is an extraordinary circumstance and one that is new ground for all of us in this courtroom," Judge Janet Berry told a courtroom audience of about 35 made up mostly of lawyers and strategists representing both parties.

"A fair and accurate certification cannot be met at this time," the judge said on Tuesday.

Dancer said it was highly unlikely the review would threaten Reid's re-election to a third term.

But a GOP leader said the continued delay was raising additional questions about the reliability of the results.

"By their own admission, they are plagued by software problems. That raises more questions than answers about the reliability of this result," former Nevada Gov. Robert List told The Associated Press.

Despite the Veterans Day holiday, the Washoe County Commission scheduled a status hearing on the ballots for 8 a.m. today. If the results are complete, a formal canvassing was to occur later today. If not, the commission planned to meet again on Thursday.

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

The county had planned to forward the results to the county commission on Tuesday.

But Dancer reported in a statement minutes before that meeting that "the process has been plagued with software problems which have been adding hours to the process.

"The slowdown is that the database that contains the ballots is a fairly secure database," said John Byerly, a member of the Washoe County Accuracy Certification Board. "It's very difficult" to access the ballots, he said. "It's supposed to be and it is."

Dancer and Byerly said they were optimistic the certification would be completed today, but were making no promises.

"At this point, I've been burned so many times, I won't give you a time line," Byerly told reporters at the registrar's office before testifying before Berry.

Dancer said the original problem with the ballots was 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.

She said a technician for the hardware and software manufacturer, Global Election Systems, had been on the site since 4 a.m. Tuesday.

"As an absolute fallback," Simon said, all county ballots could be recounted by hand.

"It will be very time consuming, but if we have to go back to that process, we can," she said. "Certainly the votes are there. The ballots are cast. We have them."

Reid was attending a conference on problem gambling in Las Vegas.

"He just wants the numbers. He's anxiously awaiting the numbers like everybody else," press secretary Jenny Backus said. "He's had confidence in the process all along."