Neal foe Clinton requests recount

Erin Neff

Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2000 | 11:38 a.m.

Bolstered by a discrepancy at one voting machine, state Senate candidate Uri Clinton is hoping a recount focussing on mail-in and absentee ballots will find enough similar errors to push him into the general election.

Clinton asked Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax this morning for a recount of the District 4 race won by a razor-thin margin last Tuesday by 28-year incumbent Joe Neal.

During an election certification meeting Tuesday before the Clark County Commission, Lomax reported an "unresolved" issue with a voting machine in precinct 4005 at Cheyenne High School in North Las Vegas. The machine had two more activations than people who signed in and received receipts for voting.

Lomax said the mishap "doesn't change anything" with the vote totals that gave Neal exactly six more than he needed to win the race outright.

But Clinton sees it differently, claiming the discrepancy at the machine taints the overall vote at that precinct and should reduce Neal's total to four more than needed to forego the general election.

"Six votes is hard to swallow, but four votes is impossible to live with," Clinton said after the County Commission voted unanimously to certify the election numbers. "In order to see that the process is true, I need to seek a recount to defend the value of the 46 percent of votes that went to me."

Lomax stood by his vote totals showing 4,055 ballots cast in the precinct.

Since the race featured only Democratic candidates, the election could be decided if one candidate received 50 percent of the total votes cast, plus one vote. In the District 4 race, that meant 2,027.5.

Neal got 2,034, Clinton got 1,820 and Chris Montanez got 201.

"If he wants to put the money up to pay for it, that's his choice," Neal said. "I don't have a problem with any particular recount. The only thing the recount could do is prolong the election."

Lomax said he suspects the voting machine discrepancy occurred when a polling place worker improperly activated the machine and then hit the "cast vote" button in an effort to reset the machine.

Others suggested two separate voters hit the cast vote button, realized they had forgotten to vote for a particular race and then asked the attendant to reactivate the machine for just the vote in that race.

Lomax doesn't know for certain because that particular machine's attendant is apparently out of town and unable to be reached by elections officials.

Clinton must deposit $1,000 to seek a recount. Lomax said he has yet to determine what the recount will cost, because he does not know whether the recount can be done on a weekday or on a weekend -- when overtime costs will be incurred.

Lomax said that because only three precincts -- 5 percent of the precincts in the race -- are subject to a recount, he suspects staff can manage the new tally in one day. The recount could occur as soon as Friday.

Clinton will likely select the three precincts with the highest number of absentee and mail-in votes, as those paper records are more susceptible to human error than the machine tallies, Lomax said.

More than 300 people cast such ballots in the District 4 race.

Neal has criticized Clinton's candidacy from the start because the young attorney received more than half of his $55,000 campaign war chest from the gaming industry.

Neal has proposed increasing the gaming tax from 6 1/4 percent to 11 1/4 percent -- a move vehemently opposed by the industry.

Clinton said Tuesday he would have to raise the money for the recount, a process in which Neal said gaming will have a role.

"I would assume he would have the money to do a recount," Neal said. "I'm not worried about gaming's influence of him, but I am a little bit leery of gaming's influence on the registrar.

"I'm going to have my people there (at the recount)," Neal added.

In addition to the machine discrepancy, two people told the County Commission on Tuesday about voting problems at the West Las Vegas Library -- also a polling site in the District 4 race.

Norma Anderson, who lives in West Las Vegas but not in the library's precinct, said she suspects some voters were turned away because the library did not open its front doors until 10 a.m.

But Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates said she knows people, including her sister, who were able to vote at the library between 7 and 10 that morning after following signs to the rear of the building.

"They were able to vote that morning," Gates said.

Anderson said some confused voters went to a polling site at a nearby school and were sent back to the library.

"How many people left there, went over there and came back?" Anderson asked. "And how many votes did we lose for either candidate?"

Marlene Monteolivo, who volunteered for Clinton's campaign, said she thought some Hispanic voters may have been confused that morning at the library because of a language barrier.

"I think it's much too close for comfort," Monteolivo said, asking for another election in that precinct.