Vote recount starts in Assembly district

Monday, Nov. 18, 2002 | 10:15 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A recount of election results requested by Assemblywoman Debbie Smith, D-Sparks, started today to determine if she really lost to Assemblyman Don Gustavson, R-Sun Valley, by 31 votes.

"In light of the closeness of this race, I believe the voters have the right to know that the person taking office in February is indeed the person who received the most votes," Smith said.

Gustavson, a three-term assemblyman, tallied 4,627 to Smith's 4,596. He said he was confident the vote count was done accurately the night of the election.

He said there may be one or two vote changes but he doubted there would be enough to overturn the results.

Under the procedure, Smith was to choose four of the 49 precincts that will be recounted by hand. If there is a discrepancy of more than 1 percent of the vote for either candidate, ballots from all precincts will be hand counted.

If there is a discrepancy of less than 1 percent, all ballots will be machine counted.

Smith, who has served one term, had been a favorite going into the election in District 30 where Democrats outnumber Republicans 8,158 to 6,612.

"It was an uphill battle but I outworked her," Gustavson said.

Smith said a large number of ballots were incorrectly marked and they had to be hand-duplicated by a special board the night of the elections. She also said she was 51 votes ahead with 97.7 of the precincts reporting. But when the final count came in, she had lost.

Those were the two major factors why she asked for the recount.

Gustavson said there were some ballots that were not properly marked. But he said the election team went over the ballots very carefully election night. He said the dramatic change late in the voting was due to Republicans who brought in their absentee ballots on Election Day.

They were counted last, he said.

"I picked up 81 votes," in those absentee ballots, Gustavson said.

Dan Burk, registrar of voters of Washoe County, said Smith paid $5,134 for the cost of the recount. He said Smith will get her money back if the recount comes out in her favor.