Saturday, October 02, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Clark County may lead nation in voter sign-ups

Correction -- 10/03/04 -- Requests for mail ballots must reach the Clark County Election Department by 5 p.m. on Oct. 26. The deadline was incorrect in a Saturday Review-Journal article.

Temporary employees on Friday process some of the more than 100,000 new registrations that have been filed with Clark County election officials in the past eight weeks. Photo by Ralph Fountain.

A massive spike in voter registrations has placed Clark County on a pace to lead the nation in the percentage of new voters and has resulted in Democratic gains that could affect the general election in a key battleground state.

In the past eight weeks, about 100,000 new registrations have been filed, more than 13,000 this week alone.

Though voters still can register until Oct. 12, the flurry of activity is expected to end, as today marks the deadline to register without going to the Clark County Election Department in person.

"We've already passed the number of registration forms processed this year than we did in the last three years combined," said Larry Lomax, Clark County's registrar of voters.

The county has processed some 250,000 forms this year, including 150,000 new registrants, giving Democrats a wider margin of control in the state's most populous county.

From the late 1990s through 2003, Democrats hovered around 30,000 more voters in the county than Republicans. The margin now is 45,000.

"As we've seen over the last several months, Democrats are more organized and energized than they've been in a long time," said Democratic party spokesman Jon Summers.

But Chris Carr, executive director of the state GOP, said new voters will not necessarily turn out to vote, and he is heartened by the statewide registration numbers that show Nevada still is a toss-up.

"We've seen it go back and forth," Carr said. "The good thing here in Clark County is that the polls I've seen show the president is doing well here and is within the margin of error in this county."

The most recent statewide registration data dates to Aug. 17 and shows Democrats with a 1,021-voter edge. With newer growth data from Clark and Washoe counties figured in, Democrats said they have a 3,771-voter edge statewide.

Lomax said he thinks the huge increase in Clark County is among the highest in the nation.

A New York Times reporter contacted him about voter registration increases in battleground states, Lomax said, and told him "Clark County is the champion."

"I have a gut feeling that he's probably right," Lomax said.

A spike in voter registration for one party over another is far from an election day guarantee for the candidate.

But some of the groups paid to register voters in Nevada plan to stay through Nov. 2 to get those new voters to the polls.

Bobbie Mullins, who has been working with tax-exempt advocacy groups tied to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said her groups have submitted about 17,000 registrations in Clark County this year. Now her groups, known as 527s, are working on the next step.

"What we're doing is concentrating on the minority community," Mullins said. "We're doing mailers to specific precincts and are also planning (public service announcements) on radio."

Billy Rogers, president of the left-leaning Southwest Strategies consulting firm, said his group was responsible for about 20,000 voter registrations this year.

"There's a whole universe of people who did not vote in the 2000 election," Rogers said. "Now we have to turn them out by giving them a good reason to vote."

Rogers' firm, which handles ballot initiatives and grass-roots political campaigns, targeted precincts with Democratic advantages when it registered voters this year.

"I think our efforts are clearly going to help progressive candidates and progressive causes," Rogers said.

Kevin Griffis of the 527 group America Coming Together said his organization has submitted thousands of voter forms this year. ACT also runs television ads in Nevada condemning President Bush.

Earlier this year, Lomax announced the spike in outside interest has increased the number of fraudulent forms received by his office.

In the context of 250,000 forms filed this year, he said, the fraud is minimal and typically was easy to spot with duplicated forms.

Lomax has given the suspicious forms to the Secretary of State's office, which asked the criminal division of the state Public Safety Department to investigate.

"The integrity of the electoral process will not be compromised with this investigation," said Kim Evans, a spokeswoman for the Division of Investigations.

Lomax said he has not been informed of any prosecutions related to voter fraud. Lomax also said he is fairly confident all of the fraudulent forms have been turned over to investigators.

Carr said while most groups registering voters are left-leaning, he does not think any one group is responsible for fraudulent forms.

"You've got people paid to do voter registration," Carr said. "I don't think it's any attempt to actually steal an election, but it could possibly complicate election day with so many people added to the vote file.

"If people who don't exist are processed through the system, that's a problem," Carr said.