Judge’s ruling halts North Las Vegas special election

A District Court judge ruled Friday that North Las Vegas must certify a City Council race decided by one vote and it can't hold a special election to resolve questions about an ineligible voter who might have participated in the June 7 contest.

Wade Wagner, a Republican, defeated incumbent Councilman Richard Cherchio, a Democrat, by a single vote for the Ward 4 seat in the nonpartisan election.

The council later decided to redo the election on July 19 in one precinct and allow all registered voters to take part, even if they didn't cast ballots in the first race.

Wagner's attorney, Todd Bice, said the judge's ruling nullifies an improper action by the council.

He accused the council of trying to skew the outcome by picking a heavily Democratic precinct and not limiting participation to those who had voted before.

"I think it was election manipulating," Bice said.

Councilwoman Anita Wood called the judge's decision frustrating but said the council now has no choice but to canvass the election.

Because an ineligible vote may have been cast in the race, Wood said she is still troubled by certifying the results.

State law requires a government to deal with clerical errors discovered during an election to ensure the outcome reflects "the true vote cast," she said.

"I don't know what the true result was, so how can I canvass it?" Wood said. "So I sent it back to the voters to give me clear direction."

Wagner won the race with 1,831 votes versus Cherchio's 1,830.

Cherchio, who was appointed in 2009, was relieved of his duties on July 1, leaving a four-person council to oversee the city until the dispute is resolved.

Cherchio said Judge Elizabeth Gonzales' decision was against the city and not against him or his campaign. That leaves him free to request a recount and seek other remedies after the results are canvassed, he said.

"We haven't begun our campaign yet to get a new election," Cherchio said, adding that he will "exercise every option that's out there" in challenging an election with a one-vote margin.

Using special elections to resolve ballot discrepancies is nothing new, he said, noting that North Las Vegas held one in 1999 for that purpose.

The 1999 do-over was intended to fix two mistakes made in a primary race in which two votes separated a candidate who would make it to the general election and one who would be eliminated, said Larry Lomax, Clark County's registrar of voters.

It had a key difference from the one the council recently proposed: Participation was limited to people who had voted in the first contest, Lomax said.

This time, council members opted for a special election in precinct 4306, where an ineligible voter participated. The voter moved from Ward 3 to 4 and failed to update his registration, Lomax said.

Because ballots are secret, it is unknown whether the ineligible person actually voted for a councilman, Lomax said. Two people in that precinct voted in the judge's contest but not the council race, he added.

If the council had gotten its wish, 1,248 registered voters would have been free to cast ballots, compared with the 112 who participated in June, Lomax said.

Lomax said Bice is correct about the precinct being deeply blue, with 808 registered Democrats, 211 Republicans and 220 who belong to other parties.

But then, Ward 4 as a whole tilts that way, with 11,900 Democrats versus 6,200 Republicans and 4,600 affiliated with other parties, he said.

The contest between Cherchio and Wagner was overshadowed by the war between Cherchio and the city's police and unions. The unions campaigned zealously against him because he voted for cuts in public safety staffing to save money in the cash-strapped city.

North Las Vegas is wrestling with a $30.3 million shortfall in fiscal 2012 and last month adopted a budget in which more than 250 jobs were slashed, including those of roughly 35 firefighters and a dozen police officers.

Both sides agree there are more skirmishes to come.

"Unfortunately it sounds like this is not going to be the last effort," Bice said.

Review-Journal writer Lynnette Curtis contributed to this report. Contact reporter Scott Wyland at swyland@reviewjournal.com or 702-455-4519.