Voters may see changes in how elections are run

Kirsten Searer

Friday, April 15, 2005 | 9:30 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Elections will look a little different under a list of bills that received initial approval Thursday.

The Assembly Elections, Procedures, Ethics and Constitutional Amendments Committee also voted to tighten up some state ethics laws in response to several recent accusations against public officials.

"It's horrible to go knock on a door and somebody says, 'Oh, you're one of those,' " said the committee's chairwoman, Assemblywoman Ellen Koivisto, D-Las Vegas. "I think I've been straight and upright, but we're all tarred with the same brush."

One of the biggest changes in elections would be a shift in the primary election date from the first Tuesday in September to the third Tuesday in June.

Proponents argued it would give voters more time to focus on the more critical general election.

And, in another major shift, candidates running for local government positions in Clark County could opt to list their political party on ballots. Right now, the races are non-partisan.

Many candidates already put their political parties on signs or mail pieces, Assemblyman Marcus Conklin, D-Las Vegas, said.

"It's a transient population, and in many cases these people haven't even met their elected representative," he said. "The only way they can know them or have some sense of identity with them is to have a party to affiliate with them."

Reacting in response to charges last election that partisan groups accepted voter registration forms from people and then tore them up, the committee also voted to put better tracking numbers on voter registration forms.

County officials were unable to track the forms last year because clerks distributed so many to groups that were not required to turn them back in.

"That would be an enormous help to us," Clark County Registrar Larry Lomax said.

Dealing with ethics, the committee originally discussed some tight measures, including a law to prohibit public officials from accepting an aggregate of more than $50 in gifts from people who could be looking for political favor.

Legislators said the measure could become complicated. A Nevada farm, for example, sends legislators a bag of potatoes each year, and legislators worried the bags could eventually add up to more than $50.

Another provision would have prohibited public officials from voting on any measure that could possibly affect them personally.

Right now, officials must disclose any potential conflicts, but they can vote if the law will not affect them any differently than other people involved in the issue.

Legislative Counsel Brenda Erdoes testified that the bill could get complicated, and said she would advise anyone who asked her whether to vote on an issue to abstain simply because they had some doubt.

Instead, legislators tightened up enforcement of a law that treats officials differently if they "willfully" violate ethics laws.

The controversy came up last year when Controller Kathy Augustine was impeached but found not to have willfully violated state ethics laws.

The panel also voted to require all elected officials to take ethics training from the Nevada Ethics Commission within the first six months of their tenure.

"Now you're not going to be able to claim, 'I didn't know,' " Conklin said. "You will have had bona fide training on state ethics laws on what you are and aren't allowed to do."

New legislators already go through that training, but Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, R-Reno, who voted against the bill, said she's concerned the crackdown on ethics laws will discourage people from running for office because they will feel the laws are designed to trap them.

"People are just going to say, 'It's not worth the price,' " Angle said. "I don't think we're going to get quality people even wanting to represent the state or run for office."

The measures will now go to the Assembly floor.