Ensign’s name more prominent on some rural county ballots

Thursday, Aug. 24, 2000 | 11:25 a.m.

When it comes to ballots, size matters.

Four rural Nevada counties learned last week that U.S. Senate candidate John Ensign's name on the absentee, early voting and sample ballots was slightly larger than that of his opponents in the Sept. 5 Republican primary.

Two of the counties, Elko and White Pine, mailed about 400 of those ballots to voters before the error was caught by an alert White Pine resident. The other two counties, Eureka and Pershing, had not mailed out any of those ballots.

The upshot is that the ballots that were not sent out have been reprinted, with the printer agreeing to pay for the labor and the counties swallowing the paper costs.

The ballots, printed by Martin and Chapman of Anaheim, Calif., contained 9-point type for former Las Vegas Rep. Ensign and 8-point type for fellow Republicans Richard Hamzik of Gardnerville and Fernando Platin Jr. of Henderson.

"I guess we're all to blame," Elko County Clerk Karen Dredge said of her fellow county clerks and the printer. "In all the years we've done business with Martin and Chapman this has never happened before.

"It's just something that happens when you're dealing with printing and word processing. When we proofread the ballots we're looking for misspelled names. We look to make sure the terms of office are correct and that the candidates are in alphabetical order."

Glenn Sailer, vice president of sales and election administration for Martin and Chapman, said this is the first time in the 45 years the company has printed ballots that such an error was brought to its attention.

"I would not put the county clerks on the spot," Sailer said. "We have a form where we specify that we will not be responsible for anything once it has been approved. But we are a professional printing company, and we accept the blame as well.

"We're going to eat the labor cost because that is fair and the right thing to do."

An employee in the White Pine County Clerk's office, who requested anonymity, said about 300 ballots with the erroneous print were sent to Republican voters.

Dredge said about 50 absentee and 50 overseas ballots containing the same error were mailed in her county. She estimated that her county will have spent "a few" thousand dollars in materials for the reprinted ballots.

Hamzik's wife, Bernadine, expressed concern Wednesday by pointing out that Ensign lost to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., by only 428 votes in 1998.

"A mistake like this will affect the outcome of the election and it should be challenged," she said. "If 400 of these ballots went out, that could be the difference that makes Richard or John win."

Ballots are proofread by the county clerks before they are mailed to voters but as Dredge noted, type face is not normally checked. She said the four county clerks learned about the problem when it was brought to their attention by a White Pine voter.

"I've been doing elections for 30 years, and I didn't catch it," Dredge said.

Once it was called to her attention, Dredge noticed that in the line above Ensign's name where it states "Vote for ONE," the word "ONE" was also in 9-point type. She speculated that the typesetter inadvertently retained the 9-point type when listing Ensign's name.

There are no federal laws or Nevada state laws that require all names on a ballot to be listed in the same type size. But Sailer said California law requires all candidates to be listed in the same type and boldness.

"If California thinks it was important enough to make into a law, it's certainly important enough for Nevada," Sailer said.