Nevada Democrats closing gap on GOP voter registration edge

Tuesday, July 20, 1999 | 10:47 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Republicans, since October 1995, have held the majority in Nevada's voter registration but they are seeing it slowly ebb away.

State Democratic Chairman Rory Reid said Monday his party is on the move and has narrowed the lead to 555 voters, as compared to being 3,000 voters behind at the last election in November 1998.

But Republicans say there has been a lull in voter registration because of staff changes and it will move to continue its majority.

The comments came after Secretary of State Dean Heller reported there were 371,499 Republicans and 370,944 Democrats at the end of June in voter registration.

Reid said every month since November his party has "consistently outregistered" the GOP. The new voters moving into Nevada identify with the Democratic Party "because we are fighting for issues they care about," he said. He cited the fight in Congress over legislation to regulate Health Maintenance Organizations.

But Ryan Erwin, newly installed executive director of the Nevada Republican Party, called it a "non-story" because the election isn't until November next year. He said voter registration efforts have "fallen by the wayside" while there have been staff changes in the state party.

But he said the efforts will be focused on keeping the edge. "This is a Republican state and will remain a Republican state," Erwin said.

Erwin, who was administrative aide to the chief justice in Ohio in his prior job, took over for Dan Burdish who left the GOP post about three months ago.

"For them to be touting the registration says more about their candidates. We've focused on candidates and they can't touch us," he said.

Heller's office reported there were 893,061 people registered to vote, or 4,804 less than were signed up for the November 1998 election. Since counties purged voters from their list at the beginning of the year for not casting ballots, the numbers are less for both parties.

The breakdown also shows 125,042 nonpartisan, 4,935 Libertarian, 822 Green, 16,772 Independent American, 647 Natural Law, 400 Reform and 2,000 signed up in other parties.