EDITORIAL: Munford’s re-election highlights bad state law
If you bring up voter identification laws, voter registration standards or early voting limitations, someone will decry the possibility of disenfranchisement. But a law already on Nevada’s books ended up disenfranchising thousands of Clark County voters in Tuesday’s primary election, and no one made a peep.
Las Vegas Assemblyman Harvey Munford, the incumbent in District 6, received 67.8 percent of the vote, easily winning his Democratic primary over Anthony Snowden and Arrick Foster, who received 20.5 percent and 11.7 percent, respectively.
But Mr. Munford didn’t advance to November’s general election, where nonpartisan voters and those registered with other parties would have an opportunity to weigh in on his candidacy. Because no Republicans, Libertarians, Independent Americans, other partisans or independent candidates filed to challenge Mr. Munford, and because Mr. Munford received more than 50 percent of the vote, he won election outright.
State law requires that if two candidates of the same party enter a contest and no one else files to seek the office, those two candidates automatically advance to the general election ballot, thereby giving all voters a say in the race. However, a state law passed in 1989 stipulates that when more than two candidates of the same party enter a contest and no one else files to seek the office, one candidate can win election by receiving a majority of the votes cast.
About 75 percent of the nearly 20,000 registered voters in Mr. Munford’s district are Democratic. But the district has more than 5,000 voters registered as nonpartisans or with other parties. And they will not have a voice in selecting their assemblyman.
On the same primary ballot, two nonpartisan District Court races with three candidates each saw an incumbent judge finish first with more than 50 percent of the vote. Yet both those judges now face November runoffs against the runners-up.
The larger problem here is a completely uncompetitive district drawn to the great advantage of one party. Gerrymandering is too common in Nevada’s legislative races — precious few seats are competitive. No Republicans or minor-party candidates ran for Mr. Munford’s seat because they knew they had no chance of winning. Having an independent commission, not lawmakers, redraw legislative boundaries would make more campaigns competitive and encourage well-meaning citizens to enter races they otherwise wouldn’t.
In the absence of such a common-sense government reform, however, the 2015 Legislature could clean up this statute by advancing the top two finishers in a partisan primary with at least three candidates, when they face no other opposition, to the general election ballot no matter how big the winner’s margin of victory.
