Ruling: Signatures can’t be carried over

By Matt Pordum (contact)

Friday, June 11, 2004 | 11 a.m.

District Judge Kenneth Cory ruled no legal authority existed to allow a group to carry over to the next election cycle signatures the group had collected to get two referendums on the Nov. 2 ballot.

Joel Hansen, the attorney for Nevadans for Sound Government, had filed a motion seeking to preserve the signatures the group gathered to get a referendum to repeal last year's $833 million tax increase and another seeking to prevent government employees from serving in the Legislature.

Originally today's hearing was set to determine whether the group would be given an extension on the deadline after its members said their signature-gatherers had been restricted and harassed while trying to gather signatures on public property, but the amended motion temporarily clouded matters.

The deadline for signatures for the tax referendum passed on May 18. The group fell about 6,500 signatures short of the required number for the tax repeal.

The deadline for the referendum seeking to prevent government employees from serving in the Legislature is on June 15, and proponents need 51,134 signatures of registered voters, but that total must include 10 percent of the voters in 13 of the 17 counties signing the initiative to qualify it for the ballot.

Hansen said he never intended to have his new motion to preserve the signatures trump his original request for a 60-day deadline extension, but instead serve as an alternative form of relief for Cory to consider.

Hansen said he offered the alternative because he was certain Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax would testify a 60-day extension would prevent the Nov. 2 election from occurring in Nevada.

"I said it looks like Larry Lomax will say such and such and the court won't give me the 60 days because it would hinder the election," Hansen said. "If you (Cory) say we can't have the signatures for the next election cycle, then we need to go forward."

After ruling against the carrying over of signatures from the current election cycle to the next, Cory said he would hear testimony and make a decision on a deadline extension today.

Clark County Counsel Mary-Anne Miller has said the deadlines are there for a reason, to make sure all ballots for all counties in Nevada and absentee voters are ready in time to ensure every voter has the same opportunity to vote come November.

Hansen has argued the inconvenience that the county clerks might face is less important than the inconvenience the harassment and restrictions placed on the petitioners exercising their constitutional rights to gather signatures.

Cory on June 3 issued a temporary restraining order against the state Department of Motor Vehicles, University and Community College System, Regional Transit Authority of Reno and County Clerks of Nevada saying some of their actions had violated essential First Amendment Constitutional rights of petitioners.