Lomax gets complaints of fraudulent phone calls

Heather Rawlyk

Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004 | 11:12 a.m.

A person or group of people claiming to represent the Clark County Election Department have been making calls to Las Vegas Valley residents telling them their polling places have changed to other locations -- when in fact they have not, Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said.

About 15 people contacted the Election Department early Monday and asked why their polling places were changed, Lomax said. The Election Department never made the calls, he said.

"We don't call people up and tell them their polling place is changing -- we do that by letter," Lomax said, and any such letters were sent out at least a month ago. "We don't know who made these calls, but they are false."

While Lomax said there seemed to be "no particular neighborhood targeted," he did point out that the concerned calls coming in to the Election Department Monday were from local Democrats.

"This person calling isn't saying they're with any particular party. They just say they're with the Election Department," Lomax said. "But the complaints we're getting are from Democrats, from what I can tell."

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., spoke out about the false phone calls Monday at a last-minute press conference at the Nevada Democratic Party Headquarters, 1325 E. Vegas Valley Drive.

Reid reiterated in a telephone interview that he believed local Republicans are responsible for the calls and that the Hispanic community was being targeted for the calls.

"It's criminal. Now what we (Nevada Democratic Party) want to do is to have everybody vote -- Republicans, Democrats and nonpartisans," he said. "What Republicans are trying to do is suppress the vote. They're doing it all over the country."

Chris Carr, executive director of the Nevada Republican Party, called the allegations "totally ridiculous," pointing out there is no way to know who placed the phone calls.

"To be quite honest with you, this could be Democrats calling Democrats and blaming us," he said.

Carr pointed to a brochure put out by Democrats that warns party members to watch out for voter fraud. Republicans have interpreted certain passages to say that Democrats should make pre-emptive charges of voter fraud even if they haven't happened.

"It goes right back to the playbook -- creating a sense of chaos and hoping to create a shadow of doubt before Election Day," Carr said.

Accusations aside, Lomax said the main concern is that people could have gotten one of these calls and taken it seriously.

"We only got 15 or so calls and I'm concerned that more people got these calls we don't know about and assumed it's correct," he said. "The important thing is not who is making the calls but that the people who got them know where to go and are aware that the calls they got were not true."