Sharron Angle Candidate cites problems at Washoe County polling places Dean Heller Secretary of state says he is "moving forward" to focus on general election

RENO -- Failed GOP primary congressional candidate Sharron Angle said Friday that she will file a lawsuit in state court seeking a new election in her narrow loss to Secretary of State Dean Heller.

Angle, flanked by about 25 supporters, said some Washoe County voters were disenfranchised on Election Day, and as a result, her 421-vote loss to Heller is not valid.

"The registrar of voters does not know who the winner of this election is because of the errors committed during this election," she said. "What we want is for them to give us a new election where we will have every vote counted and every voter who wants to vote to have the opportunity to vote."

Angle, a Reno assemblywoman who had considered seeking a recount of her narrow defeat to Heller in the 2nd Congressional District primary, said such a process would not address the unknown number of voters who did not get to cast a ballot on Election Day.

Washoe Registrar of Voters Dan Burke reported a number of problems on Election Day, with some voting precincts not opening on time for several reasons, including poll workers not showing up.

Burke said he was restricted from commenting in any detail on Angle's complaint. The cost of a new primary election would be $400,000 in Washoe County alone, he said.

But certainly the polling-place issues did not affect more than 30 people, nowhere near enough to change the election outcome, Burke said.

"How can we know how many people did not get to vote?" Angle said.

So Angle, using the services of Las Vegas attorney Joel Hansen, will file a contest of the election, probably in Washoe County, by Tuesday.

Heller said there were a few delays in opening six polling places in Washoe County but agreed with Burke that only a handful of voters would have been affected. The last polling place to open did so 45 minutes late, and those who could not vote earlier might have returned to cast ballots, he said.

"On a scale of one to 10 for election problems, this doesn't even count as a fraction of one," Heller said.

"I don't believe there is a cloud over this election," he said. "I am the nominee, and I'm moving forward."

Heller said that there are 60 days before the general election, in which he will face Regent Jill Derby as the Democratic candidate, and that the challenge probably would take 30 days to resolve.

"This is a dream come true for Democrats," he said.

Hansen said there is abundant evidence of election irregularities in Washoe County.

"From what I can tell, there is plenty of evidence to invalidate the election and hold another one," he said.

Angle called on all voters who had problems at the polls to come forward.

Referring to Heller, Angle said: "I would hope that the chief election officer of our state, the secretary of state, would also join us in this request for a new election."

"This is not about winning or losing; this is about doing the right thing," Angle said.

Heller campaign manager Mike Slanker called the move unfortunate. "There's a classy way to handle this," Slanker said. "John Ensign was classy the first time he ran, and now he's a U.S. senator. I hope she'll reconsider."

In 1998, Ensign challenged Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and lost by 428 votes.

Slanker added that Heller's chances in the general election could be hurt by the distraction of Angle's lawsuit.

"It's not good for the party, it's not good for our general election aspirations, and it won't be successful," he said.

Angle announced her decision to challenge the election result just minutes before the deadline to seek a recount. Angle said she had to wait until the election results from the primary were certified. The cost of a recount has been estimated by the secretary of state's office at a minimum of $110,000. Angle would have to pay those costs, but she said that was not a factor in deciding how to challenge the results.

Angle said she would have preferred to see the Washoe County Commission, which certified the county results, look into the question of voter disenfranchisement, but it did not do so.

But Heller said Angle could have asked the Washoe County Commission to not certify the results but chose not to do so. And if the disenfranchisement of voters is the real issue, he said, why didn't Angle raise concerns about other elections, including the 2004 general election in which there were problems with people getting to vote?

University of Nevada, Reno, political scientist Eric Herzik called the lawsuit "a desperate ploy." He said he had never heard of such a tactic being used in Nevada.

"Recounts are rarely ever successful, and when they are, we're talking a couple of dozen votes rather than 400," he said. "She clearly realized she couldn't win a recount."

The refusal to give up is consistent with Angle's reputation, Herzik said.

"It's another example of Sharron not playing well with others," he said. "It's in her nature -- she doggedly holds on to a position. That's why the Legislature was often 41-to-Angle."

Herzik added that he didn't expect the lawsuit to get anywhere.

"She has to show specific intent" to deny people's right to vote, he said. "Then she has to show that enough people were specifically denied the ability to vote. And then she has to show that the people who were denied were her voters."

Angle had 24,349 votes to Heller's 24,770. The third major candidate, Dawn Gibbons, wife of Rep. Jim Gibbons, a Republican candidate for governor, had 17,317 votes.

The district sprawls across most of Nevada, including a small part of Clark County.