Ensign recalls “torture” of six-week recount in Nevada

Scott Sonner

Thursday, Nov. 9, 2000 | 5:06 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - Nevada's newest U.S. senator knows all about recounts.

Former Republican Rep. John Ensign lost a heartbreaking one that dragged on for nearly six weeks two years ago in one of the closest races in Nevada history.

"It was torture," Ensign said Thursday as election officials in Florida recounted ballots to determine the presidential race between Vice President Al Gore and Republican Gov. George W. Bush.

"The more quickly you can get this thing resolved, the better off the country will be. There can only be one winner. Let's find out who it is," he said.

Ensign beat Democrat Ed Bernstein on Tuesday for the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Richard Bryan - making him the first Republican in the Senate from Nevada since GOP Sen. Chic Hecht lost to Bryan in 1988.

Ensign as a two-term congressman nearly knocked off Democratic Sen. Harry Reid in 1998, demanding the recount that stretched all the way into December.

Reid ended up winning by 428 votes - less than one-tenth of 1 percent.

"We had a lot of the same complaints that the Gore campaign has," Ensign said.

"But you know what, that sometimes is what happens," he said.

The original margin of victory announced for Reid the day after Election Day was 401 votes. An initial recount pushed the margin to 459 and the final vote canvass certified by the secretary state was 428.

Skewed margins on paper ballots and computer software glitches in Washoe County, including Reno, were blamed for the changing results.

"I can sit here right now and tell you that Washoe County was such a disaster last election that I could have screamed and hollered and said that there should be a new election," Ensign said.

"It was just so bad. It wasn't fraud, it was just incompetence," he said.

"You've got to ask for the recount. But if you go through the recount and if the recount doesn't go your way, you've got to accept it. In the long run, the state is better off because we did it that way."

Campaign workers on both sides kept all-night vigils the first few days of the recount, followed by a series of vote challenges and legal threats on both sides.

Ensign's campaign footed the $59,000 bill for the recount and finally conceded Dec. 10, 1998.

He said a number of campaign backers urged him then to challenge the results in court, or to make a formal challenge before the U.S. Senate, which has final say over who is seated after an election.

"Sometimes you may not like the way it comes out. It's like sometimes you get a bad call in a football game that doesn't go your way," Ensign said.

"But it doesn't take away from the fact the other team played well and deserves to be the champion," he said.

"The advice I would pass on (to Gore and Bush) would be the same advice Harry Reid gave to me - let the process go forward.

"Ask for a recount, get the recount and accept it."