Secretary of state clarifies rules for recalling officials

A new interpretation of Nevada law by Secretary of State Ross Miller will make it harder to recall elected officials and could complicate efforts to get several statewide initiatives on the ballot.

Miller's interpretation allows voters to sign a recall petition only if they participated in the election in which the targeted official was elected.

It also requires that the address included with a signature on a ballot petition -- recall or otherwise -- match that voter's registration information. If it doesn't, a clerk must notify the voter and clear up the discrepancy before counting the voter's signature.

Miller's deputy for elections, Matt Griffin, said the interpretation was issued Tuesday in response to "general questions we get all the time" and specific inquiries about recall petitions now circulating in Boulder City.

"From what I gathered, there was no uniform understanding of who can sign recall petitions," Griffin said.

The interpretation was based in large part on a 1994 Nevada Supreme Court case. Griffin said the secretary's action simply clarifies the rules for recall and other petitions as outlined in that high court ruling.

But Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said none of the recalls in the county since 1994, including the 2005 ouster of Las Vegas City Councilwoman Janet Moncrief, was done the way Miller says they should have been.

Instead, the county has been allowing any registered voter to sign a recall petition, regardless of whether the voter took part in the election of the official targeted for recall.

The addresses on petitions haven't been checked against voter registration information, Lomax said, because "there is nothing in the law that says you have to keep your address current (with the registrar) to be a registered voter."

Lomax said he doesn't agree with Miller's readings of the law but added his office will abide by them.

"I don't think they're correct, and when I say that, I mean statutorily," he said.

Griffin said he is aware of Lomax's objections, but the interpretation was reviewed by several attorneys in Miller's office and discussed at length with the Nevada Attorney General's Office.

"We're going to disagree on things," Griffin said of Lomax.

The county registrar also isn't thrilled about Miller's action because it could prompt a legal challenge that delays preparations for the Nov. 4 general election.

In the past, court challenges have forced county election officials to reprint ballots and other materials at the last minute and at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars.

"Whenever you open something up to go to court -- and in my view that's what this does -- it can ripple to our ability to conduct the election," Lomax said. "And that's not good in a presidential election year.

"We've got enough to worry about."

The address verification requirement could mean more work for the various groups now collecting signatures for statewide ballot initiatives, though some were already operating under the rules laid out by Miller.

Attorney Kermitt Waters is the man behind four such petitions, two that would have let voters decide whether to triple the state's gaming tax rate, and two that sought to rescind parts of a 2005 state law used by a judge to disqualify his gaming tax petitions.

Waters said people who sign his petitions already are asked whether the addresses they write down match their voter registration information. "We operate as if that was the rule already," he said, "but it's another example of how the government tries to keep the initiatives off of there."

Lomax doesn't know about that, but he said Miller's action "is going to make it much harder to get a recall petition through."

For recall organizers in Boulder City, for example, Miller's interpretation significantly reduces the number of people available to sign their petitions. Instead of going after all of the city's almost 10,000 registered voters, petitioners will have to focus on the roughly 5,000 people who voted when City Council members Travis Chandler and Linda Strickland won their seats last year.

"We see it as just another challenge," recall organizer Christine Milburn said. "We have to roll with the punches."

To force a recall election, Milburn and company have until mid-June to collect 1,085 valid signatures against Strickland and 1,268 signatures against Chandler.

"I can tell you we're well, well on our way," Milburn said. "We have that 90-day window, but we don't plan on using (all of) it."

Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0350.