Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Official: Challenger’s signatures check out in Las Vegas recall election for Steve Ross

Byron Goynes signatures verified, results go to Secretary of State’s office

Steve Ross

Steve Ross

Byron Goynes appears to have cleared the final hurdle to get his name on the ballot to challenge incumbent Steve Ross in the special recall election Jan. 31 for the Ward 6 spot on the Las Vegas City Council.

Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax, the county’s chief election official, said Friday afternoon he has been able to verify enough of the signatures of registered voters submitted by Goynes to send Goynes paperwork to the Nevada Secretary of State’s office.

“It will be up to the secretary of state to declare the petition sufficient,” Lomax said.

Loman said that Goynes submitted the signatures of 1,661 people claiming to be Ward 6 registered voters, with 1,084 needed to get on the ballot.

Lomax said the county election office then took a random sample of 500 names from that list to check them out. There needed to be an accuracy rate of 65.4 percent of the random sample to be valid, or at least 327 names, he said.

During the initial count, only 321 of those people checked out as being registered voters in the ward, Lomax said. The others might have been registered voters, but the address they had put on the petition was not the same address listed on the county voter rolls, because they had changed residences since registering, Lomax said.

Lomax said election workers then began trying to contact the people in that sample of 500 whose addresses didn't match up. Eventually, they came up with the necessary 327 names this afternoon.

Voter registration is continuing for the Ward 6 (see map) race until 9 p.m. today and from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday at the Las Vegas City Clerk's office, 400 Stewart Ave.

Early voting in the Jan. 31 race will be Jan. 26 and Jan. 27.

Lomax said the ballots will feature the names of both Ross, who was last elected in 2009, and Goynes, who is a longtime member of the Las Vegas Planning Commission.

Goynes, 51, ran for the same seat in 2005 and finished in third place.

Ross won a second four-year term to represent Ward 6 in 2009 with 54.8 percent of the vote against his challenger, attorney Jennifer Taylor.

Ross ran for mayor earlier this year, but after finishing in fifth place in the primary , he endorsed Carolyn Goodman, who won the seat.

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