Henderson lawmaker cleared of voter fraud

Thursday, Dec. 13, 2001 | 10:22 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Mineral County District Attorney Tom Wright has cleared Assemblywoman Sandra Tiffany, R-Henderson, and an associate of being involved in possible forging of voters' names on her initiative petition to break up the Clark County School District.

"It appears to me that Sandra Tiffany and Brad Lawrence were far removed from any wrongdoing that may have taken place," Wright said Wednesday.

The investigation is continuing, he said, focusing on those who actually circulated the petition in Mineral County.

Wright hopes to have the investigation wrapped up by the end of the year, he said, adding that Tiffany and Lawrence did not appear to have any part in the reported fraud.

Tiffany said she was "pleased but not surprised" by the finding of the district attorney that she was not involved.

"I wasn't even in Mineral County to collect the signatures, and I would not turn in (false) signatures to sabotage my own petition."

Tiffany said she hired Elizabeth Horton to collect the names.

Wright said the investigation has been delayed because Horton, a central figure in the case, died about two months ago.

Tiffany, who is running for the state Senate in next year's election, said the investigation hasn't hurt her campaign.

Tiffany had circulated an initiative petition statewide to split the school district, the nation's sixth largest.

Secretary of State Dean Heller, Nevada's chief election officer, ruled the petition did not have enough signatures in Mineral County to qualify it. Tiffany and her staff then began a new effort to gather the names of additional voters.

Upon examining the signatures, Heller's office suggested there may have been forgeries. Heller turned the case over to the office of Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa in May. She in turn said her office did not have the authority to investigate these types of crime.

She forwarded the request in May to Wright, who said he had limited staff and that is why the investigation has taken so long.

Tiffany eventually dropped her initiative petition, but she said she has asked for a bill to be drafted for the 2003 legislative session to allow more than one school district in Clark County.