Legislators considering changes to election laws

Kirsten Searer

Wednesday, April 13, 2005 | 11:04 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Hoping to stave off more debacles like the ones that happened in the 2004 elections, legislators dug into a pile of bills Tuesday that would reform state election laws.

"We want to make it easier for people to vote and get more people voting," said Assemblywoman Ellen Koivisto, D-Las Vegas, chairwoman of the Assembly Committee on Elections, Procedures, Ethics and Constitutional Amendments.

Some of the ideas pitted county clerks, who argued that elections could become more and more chaotic, against civil rights groups, who said laws should make it as easy as possible for people to cast ballots.

Koivisto said she did sense consensus on an idea to require companies that check out huge numbers of voter registration forms to keep track of each form.

The forms are numbered now, but county registrars have no way of tracking them.

The issue arose last year, when an employee of a voter registration company charged that his supervisors tore up forms when Democrats tried to register.

The company denied the charges but it was difficult to investigate the case because the company had checked out so many forms.

"I'm all for tightening up control of voter registration forms," Clark County Registrar Larry Lomax said.

Another more controversial idea would bump up the primary election date.

Senate Bill 478 would change the date to the first Tuesday in May from the first Tuesday in September. Assembly Bill 455 would change the primary to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in June.

Assemblyman Marcus Conklin, D-Las Vegas, said moving the primary would give voters, and candidates who make it past the primary, more time to focus on the general election.

Registrars argue that moving the primary date would increase voter turnout because the state's primary is now held right after Labor Day.

But others worry that the public won't be tuned into an election year so early.

"The earlier we have the elections and the filing period, the less the public will be able to pay attention," said Richard Siegel, president of the ACLU of Nevada and a retired political science professor.

Legislators are also taking up the issue of provisional ballots, which are cast when a voter turns up to the wrong polling place.

Last year, those voters were allowed to cast ballots in federal and statewide elections. Assembly Bill 455 would make it easier for people to cast provisional ballots in all races.

"That's really going to slow down our election results," Lomax said.

Lomax said he believes people should have to cast a ballot in their correct precinct to avoid a "chaotic environment" at polling places. Otherwise, he said, the Legislature should give registrars more time to verify ballots.

Assembly Bill 455 also would eliminate the first weekend of early voting, something that Lomax strenuously objected to. The first weekend of early voting is one of the most popular, he said.

"I see no advantage at all to doing this, absolutely none," he said.

Senate Bill 386 also would bump up the time that candidates must file campaign reports from seven days before the election to 14 days before the election.

It also toughens rules against outside people talking to voters within 100 feet of a polling area. Lomax complained that some groups hung around polling areas last election with the declared intention to "offer assistance" to voters. He said county registrars were afraid the people were trying to influence them.

Elections committees in the Senate and Assembly are scheduled to pick up the bills again on Thursday. All of the bills must be passed out of their committee by a Friday deadline or they will die.