Tie puts two North Las Vegas candidates in limbo

For most valley candidates, the municipal primary election ended Tuesday night.

But for two North Las Vegas City Council hopefuls, it's still going on and may wind up being decided by the luck of the draw.

Tanya Flanagan and Linda Meisenheimer tied for second place in the open Ward 2 race, each garnering 328 votes.

The result "obviously doesn't leave you jumping up and down," said Flanagan, a web content administrator for Clark County. "It's crazy."

Only one candidate can advance to the general election to face Pamela Goynes-Brown, an assistant principal who took home 425 votes, or 27 percent.

So what happens now?

The candidates can't do much of anything, except continue campaigning, until the election results are canvassed by the North Las Vegas City Council. That canvass is scheduled for April 20.

Each candidate then has three business days to request a recount, for which she would have to pay $600, according to the city clerk's office.

Meisenheimer has no such plans.

"I'm a firm believer that what's meant to be will be," the property manager said. "So, yeah, we're on pins and needles."

In the meantime she will continue the grueling grass-roots campaign that helped her tie for second place despite little previous name recognition in the ward.

"I'm not stopping. Nothing's told me I need to stop."

Flanagan, on the other hand, is still exploring her options.

"You have to look at everything," she said. "I wouldn't necessarily rule anything out."

If neither candidate requests a recount or if the recount results remain tied, the winner will be decided "by lot." In Nevada, that traditionally means the candidates draw for high card.

Ties such as this typically happen in rural areas with tiny electorates. It happened twice in Nevada last year: first in a primary race for Nye County Commission, then to break a tie for clerk-treasurer of Eureka County. Both were ties for first place.

Larry Lomax, Clark County register of voters, said he does not remember a case in which there has been such a tie for second place.

A tie in North Las Vegas was made more likely because of low voter turnout. Only 6,637 people cast votes in the primary election, or just 9.2 percent of the city's registered active voters. Because council members in the city are not elected at-large, which means only residents of the specific wards up for election can vote for their representatives, turnout in the city's two council races was even smaller.

In Ward 2, just 1,584 votes were cast.

Flanagan believes Nevada's tradition for breaking election ties is unfair.

"Do we gamble for our representatives?" she said. "We're saying to voters, 'We're going to draw a card, flip a coin or roll some dice.' You take away their voice."

The method also gives Goynes-Brown "a huge advantage," Flanagan said, because the process will drag on through nearly the end of the month. Both second-place candidates are free to continue campaigning, but one will be doing so in vain.

It would be fairer to both the candidates and the voters to place all three names on the general election ballot, she said.

But both state statutes and North Las Vegas's city charter say election ties shall be determined by lot. In short, it's the law.

Whichever candidate is elected will join the council at a difficult time for the cash-strapped city, which in recent years has undergone several rounds of budget cuts, service reductions and layoffs.

The council during a Thursday budget workshop was told the city faces a $22.6 million shortfall in fiscal year 2012 and may again have to lay off employees.

The general election is June 7.

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