Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Guinn signs bill moving primaries up to August

CARSON CITY -- With one exception since 1909, Nevada's primary election has always been held in September.

But the 2005 Legislature decided it will now be in August.

Carson City Clerk Alan Glover said "This will really help us" getting out the general election ballots to the military overseas and the sample ballots to voters.

Gov. Kenny Guinn Monday signed Assembly Bill 455 that puts the primary date at the 12th Tuesday before the general election. Instead of Sept. 5, 2006, the primary will be Aug. 15, Glover said.

That will provide extra weeks between the primary election and the general.

This was one of the major changes in the election laws approved by the lawmakers.

Renee Parker, chief deputy secretary of state, said Monday that not all the election bills have been processed so her office doesn't know what might have happened in Senate-Assembly conference committees on the final night.

But she knows that the "campaign financing reform" package supported by Secretary of State Dean Heller didn't make it through. Also dead are bills or resolutions that would have created a presidential primary in Nevada and scrapped term limits for elected officers.

Also killed was a plan to allow voters to cast a "no preference" vote on all candidates on the ballot, instead of the "None of the Above" on the statewide elective offices.

And a bill to force the cities in Clark County to move their municipal elections from June in the odd numbered years to coincide with the state's general election in November in even numbered years, never made it through.

In addition to changing the state's primary election date, AB455 also requires the county clerks to keep tighter controls over voter registration forms. They must maintain a record and the numbers that are given out to organizations who go out and register voters.

Glover said the primary election has always been in September since 1909 except when the Legislature changed it in 1954 moving it to June. But the Legislature quickly moved it back to September in the following election.

Senate Bill 224, also approved, provides that public buildings must designate an area for those gathering signatures on petitions and referendums.

This sparks a controversy in the last election when the Independent American Party and other groups were denied access to public buildings. In Reno, Janine Hansen and her son were arrested at the municipal bus station when they refused to leave. The misdemeanor charges were eventually dropped.

SB224 also requires that a person gathering voter registrations must submit them within three days after the voter signs the form to the county clerk or voter registrar.

Assembly Bill 500 requires political candidates to provide more proof of residency when they file. But county or state officials are prohibited from giving out a candidate's Social Security number or information from a candidate's driver's license.

Also in AB500 is a section that a polling place may not be located in any building that is named after a person who is a candidate in that election. Glover said that occurred in the last election in Las Vegas involving former Assemblyman Wendell Williams, D-Las Vegas.

Glover said local officials did not let the Wendell Williams school be used for voting.

Assembly Joint Resolution 5 on initiative petitions failed in the regular session of the Legislature. At present the constitution requires that 10 percent of the voters in each of 13 of the 17 counties must sign an initiative or referendum to get it on the ballot.

A federal court declared that unconstitutional. AJR5 changed that to requiring 10 percent of the signatures in each of the three congressional districts.

While it didn't make it through in the regular session, it passed in the special session in the form of Assembly Joint Resolution 1.

One of the bills sought by county clerks and election officials was Senate Bill 386. It would have cleaned up obsolete language referring to punch card voting and it also would have increased the maximum fines to be imposed by the state Ethics Commission. For instance a first offense would have gone from a maximum of $5,000 to $10,000.

But that bill failed. Glover said the election officials will be back in 2007 with the bill to eliminate the old language in the law.

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