Editorial: New vote not warranted

Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2006 | 7:07 a.m.

Sharron Angle, who lost to Dean Heller by 421 votes in the Republican primary for Nevada's 2nd Congressional District, wants a new election. That's right. Angle isn't asking for a recount because ballots were miscounted, mishandled or there is a suspicion of fraud.

No, Angle wants a state judge to order a new election because, she claims, some voters in Washoe County were unable to vote. The Reno Gazette-Journal has reported that several dozen people were turned away when they tried to vote on the morning of the primary election because workers didn't immediately show up at about 10 polling places.

There are a whole range of problems with Angle's request for a new election:

Angle, a relatively unknown state assemblywoman whose claim to fame has been her fiscally irresponsible anti-tax crusade, is lucky that she received as many votes as she did. The reality is that her candidacy only received momentum because of the financial backing from an outside group, the right-wing Club for Growth, which Heller estimates spent $1 million to support Angle's bid. The Club for Growth, it should be noted, has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent years from the Stephens family in Arkansas, which owns Stephens Media and in turn owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The Club for Growth and its financial supporters were hoping to impose their out-of-state, fringe agenda on Nevada by propping up Angle's candidacy. They came very close to getting Angle elected. While they lost fair and square, they are now trying a radical end-run, hoping that they can buy the election in a do-over that has no justification whatsoever. It is truly pathetic to now see Nevada Republican Party Chairman Paul Adams, one of the most divisive figures in state GOP politics in some time, chime in and support Angle's bid for a new vote.

While we are at it, let's not forget the Republican fury over Al Gore's efforts in the 2000 presidential election to simply get every vote cast in Florida counted - a recount that, by the way, was stopped by the Republican-dominated U.S. Supreme Court. What Angle and her big money backers would like to do is truly radical - order a whole new election because of a few irregularities, something that happens in nearly every election.

The fact of the matter is that Sharron Angle is a sore loser, and it is inconceivable to us that any state judge would let an outside group come in and hijack Nevada's elections.