18 ballots too late to count

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman touched off a kerfuffle at his regular Thursday news conference when he mentioned that the city had on Wednesday discovered 18 uncounted mail-in ballots in the extremely close race between Las Vegas City Council candidates Stavros Anthony and Glenn Trowbridge.

Anthony defeated Trowbridge for the Ward 4 seat by a mere 10 votes on Tuesday.

Goodman said he had "heard rumors" of the ballots being discovered at the post office Wednesday morning.

"I'm advised that when they went on the evening of the election to pick up the last batch, they picked up everything," he said. "And when they went the day after the election, they found 18" more ballots at the post office.

"I don't know when they were postmarked or whether they were at all available to be counted for the election," Goodman said.

But it doesn't matter when ballots are postmarked; they are not counted if received late, Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said. The 18 ballots were not received by the close of voting and therefore would not be counted.

"The laws in Nevada are the ballots must be in our possession by 7 o'clock on election night," Lomax said. "Every election, mail ballots come in late. They're not counted."

The city subsequently released a statement about the incident. A staffer from the city clerk's office had at midday Tuesday checked the mailbox into which ballots are deposited, then later phoned the post office to verify that there were no more ballots present, the city said.

"The clerk's office was told there were no ballots present at the close of polls," the statement read. "The 18 ballots in the box on Wednesday, June 3, do not meet the state election requirements" and are thus invalid.

Trowbridge, 65, vowed on election night to pursue a recount, calling the election results "practically a tie."

He received 3,299 votes to Anthony's 3,309 votes.

Reached Thursday afternoon in Oregon, where he is vacationing until Tuesday, Trowbridge said he still plans to pursue the recount. He hadn't heard anything about the 18 uncounted ballots and seemed unimpressed.

"Right now, I'm going to finish my taco," he said.

His campaign manager, Jim Ferrence, said the ballots represent "18 disenfranchised voters."

"I know that, technically, the law says what the law says," Ferrence said. "But it's an impossible standard to tell a voter to be responsible for when the postmaster gets it (the ballot) there. They mailed their ballots before election day and deserve to have their votes counted."

Ferrence said he will research the matter and plans to have an attorney look into it after the recount is requested next week.

A candidate has three days after the vote is canvassed to request a recount. The election is slated to be officially canvassed on Monday.

Anthony, meanwhile, said he isn't concerned about the 18 ballots because "they were unofficial."

"I have complete faith in the Election Department, that they're following the law," the 52-year-old police captain said Thursday.

He also wasn't worried about a potential recount.

"The Election Department does a great job running elections," he said. "I don't see them making any mistakes."

Contact reporter Lynnette Curtis at lcurtis @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0285.