Senate candidate asks for random listing on ballots

Kirsten Searer

Friday, May 21, 2004 | 11:14 a.m.

A perennial candidate has filed a lawsuit asking that candidates in Senate District 1 be listed in random order on the September primary ballot.

Attorney Mike Schaefer, one of five Democrats running for the seat, filed the lawsuit in District Court on Thursday. He argues that the first and last candidates listed on a ballot have an unfair advantage over candidates lumped in the middle.

Clark County Registrar Larry Lomax should hold some sort of lottery to determine the order in which candidates will appear on the Sept. 7 primary ballot and the Nov. 2 general election ballot, Schaefer's lawsuit says.

Schaefer, whose name would be listed fourth out of five candidates on the Democratic ballot, said he realizes that he still could end up listed in the middle, but he said he'd rather take his chances on his luck than on his birth name.

"Of course somebody's going to be first, somebody's going to be last," he said. "But the important thing is everyone gets the chance to be first."

A hearing on the matter is scheduled for May 27.

Schaefer said he filed a similar lawsuit in California in the late 1960s to win the right for a lottery that would determine the order of candidates' names on a San Diego ballot.

A judge ordered that names be listed randomly in the case, and in 1975 the state enacted reforms to list candidates randomly and then rotate the order of names by Assembly district, so that each candidate can be listed first in some districts.

Studies show that candidates listed first on a ballot automatically have at least a 5 percent advantage in an election, Schaefer said. The next-best place to be on the ballot is the final name listed, he said.

Schaefer filed two challenges in the 1990s to Nevada's system of listing candidates, one in state court and one in federal court, when he was running for Las Vegas City Council and for justice of the Peace. He lost both, but said he has new witnesses and arguments.

Democrat John Lee, whose name would appear third on a Democratic ballot, said he has been on both ends of an "alphabetical advantage" in previous races.

"I've not seen it to make a practical difference in any of my races personally," he said.

Lomax this morning said that listing candidates randomly can confuse voters. And while Schaefer argues in his suit that less than one-third of states list candidates alphabetically, Lomax pointed out that many states, such as Arizona and Texas, list the candidate who got the most votes first, giving them an even bigger advantage.