President concerned about possible Nevada voter fraud

Kirsten Searer

Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2004 | 10:50 a.m.

The White House is so concerned about voter registration fraud in Clark County that officials could send in federal investigators to look at the issue, Secretary of State Dean Heller said this morning.

President Bush mentioned the subject on his visit to Las Vegas Tuesday, when he rode to the Las Vegas Convention Center with Heller, Attorney General Brian Sandoval and Gov. Kenny Guinn.

"He brought it up and he was concerned," Heller said.

Clark County Registrar Larry Lomax first warned the public in July that his office was receiving a large number of suspect forms distributed by groups looking to register new voters in this tight election season.

Lomax originally turned over the matter to the FBI, which he said declined to investigate.

The issue later went to the Nevada Division of Investigations, which continues to look into the matter, Heller said.

While the president was speaking Tuesday, Heller said he turned to presidential adviser Karl Rove on the matter, and Rove told Heller he also was worried about the potential fraud and hoped to send in federal investigators.

Heller called it a "normal reaction" because of the troubles encountered in the last presidential race in Florida.

"I believe that the Department of Justice is very serious about making sure that when we run elections in this country, we don't have some of the same concerns," Heller said.

More than 100 groups have voter registration forms from the election office, and several could be paying their employees by the number of registration forms they turn in, instead of by the hour, Lomax said.

Nevada law prohibits paying people by the form.

Even though there is an ongoing investigation and the issue has been publicized, Lomax said his office continues to receive suspect forms.

About a week ago, Lomax said, he spent three days processing forms so he could get a feel for what's coming into the office. As many as one in eight is troublesome, he said.

While some people might be filling out duplicate forms to change their parties or because they want to ensure they're on the voting roll, Lomax said some people are registering themselves four, five -- or even 20 -- times a week.

In many cases, the signatures appear to match voter rolls, and Lomax said he wonders if paid workers are collaborating with some voters to obtain duplicate forms.

Lomax said the department is turning over information to the Department of Investigations and attaching a copy of the form to the voter's file so officials can look up a voter's history in case there are problems on Election Day.

There were no issues with voter fraud in the Primary Election, Lomax said.

Bush did compliment Heller on the state's new touch screen voting machines, Guinn said.

"He said he thought it was a real leap for the nation," Guinn said.