INITIATIVE PETITIONS: WORKERS START RACING TIME

Goal: Check 120,000 Signatures by Month's End

Temporary employees and Clark County staff members recruited to verify
signatures manually on initiative petitions embarked on a daunting task
Monday: checking upwards of 120,000 signatures in 12 business days.

The process was triggered by U.S. District Judge James Mahan's Friday
ruling that struck down two laws governing the initiative process in
Nevada.

Mahan deemed unconstitutional the "13 counties rule," which requires
an initiative to include signatures from at least 10 percent of the
number of voters who voted in the most recent general election in at
least 13 of the state's 17 counties.

To succeed, petitioners needed 51,337 signatures. Mahan's decision
means that instead of meeting the "13 counties" formula, petitioners
could have all of their signatures come from one large county, such as
Clark.

Election officials must count and check every signature on three
petitions to determine whether the initiatives qualify for the
November ballot under the new guidelines.

"We'll get it done, but good God," said Larry Lomax, Clark County's
registrar of voters. "We'll have to throw an awful lot of people and
an awful lot of hours to get this done."

Mahan's ruling came after a lawsuit and motion for injunction filed
July 27 by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, the Committee
to Regulate and Control Marijuana, the Marijuana Policy Project and
several individual petition circulators and registered Nevada voters.

Lomax said lawsuits are becoming so common with failed petitions, he
might lobby the state to move up filing deadlines for signature
gatherers to give his office more time to accommodate problems.

On Monday, a taxpayers group filed a lawsuit to try to stop the
signature verification process for an initiative petition that seeks
to repeal the 2003 legislative tax increase.

"We've gotten to the point that every petition that fails goes to
court," Lomax said. "If all this litigation is going to take place, we
need more time."

The outcome of the verification process could affect three
initiatives: the marijuana petition, a petition that seeks to ban
public workers from serving in the Nevada Legislature, and the tax
repeal initiative, known as Ax the Tax.

Lomax figured if two full-time employees worked for a year to verify
signatures on all three petitions, they would not complete the task.
He is counting on temporary help and has recruited county employees to
help.

Workers Monday typed in names or addresses, whichever was more
legible, into the county's database. Once they identified the voter,
they matched the signature on the petition to the one in the system.

In the conference room where the marijuana initiative petitions were
checked, members of the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana
lined the back wall and videotaped the proceedings.

Lomax said he rejected their request to have a member sit next to each
worker throughout the verification process.

Lomax said he expected each worker to get through 30 signatures an
hour, then speed up as they become familiar with the process.

"The hardest part is trying to figure out scribbley or lousy writing,"
he said.

County clerks across the state said Monday they are doing all they can
to count signatures, but some officials expressed concern the election
could be at risk.

Douglas County Clerk Barbara Reed said the counting of the signatures
will be done in time but questioned whether the absentee ballots will
be printed and ready to mail by a Sept. 23 deadline.

The county expects about 3,000 requests for absentee ballots, and not
getting them to military personnel and others in time could
disenfranchise them, she said.

"We could be setting the state as a whole up for possible litigation
after the general election if we don't make these deadlines," Reed
said.

Washoe County Registrar of Voters Dan Burk also had concerns about the
effect of the counts on the election process.

"To be honest, we're playing with fire now about whether we can get
this done," he said.

Burk said his staff is working 12-hour shifts six days a week to get
ready for the primary and for all other election related issues.

"It is making it extremely difficult for us to do what the voters
want, which is to ensure election security and to make sure their
votes are counted properly," said Burk, who has hired extra staff.

About 12,000 signatures need to be checked in Washoe for the tax
repeal and public employee measures.

But the task of counting nearly 17,000 signatures on the marijuana
legalization initiative might not get done in time, he said.

"It's a mess," he said.

In Clark County, the burden from Friday's ruling was exacerbated by
Monday's announcement that groups that registered voters did not turn
their paperwork in on time.

Lomax said he expected a stream of residents to come into elections
offices to register before this evening's deadline.

On top of that, a storm that blew Sunday through the Las Vegas Valley
damaged an early voting poll site off Centennial Parkway.

Last month, the election division's server was overloaded and crashed
when extra staff was brought in to register voters.

Some election administrators have not had a day off since July
18.

"This is unquestionably the worst (election season)," Lomax said.
"Everything that can happen to us has happened to us. If you sense
frustration on my part, you're right."