SUSPICIOUS SIGNATURES SURFACE ON INITIATIVE PETITIONS

When the late President Lyndon Baines Johnson was accused of
benefitting from votes of Texans who were dead, political observers
mused that, being loyal Democrats, that's how the dead would have
wanted their votes cast.

And Nevada has its own history of ballots being cast in the name of
the dead, according to the "Political History of Nevada," issued by
the Secretary of State.

"So long as the memory of the departed was respected by not voting him
except in proper alignment with the party with which he affiliated in
his lifetime, the ethics and traditions were considered as having in
no way been violated," Nevada historian Sam Davis wrote of Silver
State voting practices in the late 19th century.

But modern-day election fraud is no joking matter, as at least two
police investigations have been launched in Nevada this political
season stemming from the names of dead people showing up on petitions
for initiatives.

Carson City Clerk Alan Glover said he recently turned over to the
Carson City Sheriff's office petitions from the Education First
initiative where a phone book apparently was used as a source for
allegedly fraudulent signatures.

And the White Pine County Sheriff's office confirmed in a Sun story
Friday that petitions in the marijuana initiative contained
"irregularities" and that an investigation is ongoing.

Glover said suspicions arose over a petition in Carson City when
clerks noticed the name of a person who supposedly signed the petition
on May 14 but who had died in December.

He said the petition in question also contained the name of a Carson
County employee he knew. Glover immediately recognized the signature
was not that of his friend.

"We have had incidents where people signed petitions and died several
days later, but I don't remember ever having this kind of a problem,"
Glover said.

Carson City Sheriff's Sgt. Bob White, who investigated the incident,
said he has submitted a request to the District Attorney's office for
a warrant to charge a 45-year-old Carson City woman with felony
charges of obtaining money under false pretense and forgery.

"She is a single mother who was strapped for cash and was sick and
said she could not go out to collect names for $1 a signature," White
said. "She confessed that one night she got out the phone book and
wrote down names. She was remorseful and had no idea of the
ramifications of what she had done."

He declined to say how many bogus signatures were submitted by the
woman.

The Carson City District Attorney's office criminal division is
reviewing the submission for the warrant, the office said Friday.

"I've been here 15 years and this is the first investigation of this
type that I've had," said White Pine Sheriff's Detective Mike Stolk,
noting that no arrests have been made in the probe into questionable
petitions in Ely.

He declined to say how many signatures are involved in that
investigation.

An employee in the White Pine County Clerk's office in Ely said the
matter was turned over to law enforcement authorities after some
petitions were found to contain names of dead people and names of
others who told election officials they did not sign the petition.

Dan Burk, Washoe County's Registrar of Voters, said there were no
reported irregularities in petitions so far this year in his
jurisdiction, but he said the county has had to deal with similar
problems in past elections.

"In the past, we had a problem with someone who did one entire
booklet, (consisting of about 70 invalid signatures)," Burk said,
noting he could not recall which race or issue was involved or whether
there was any resolution or punishment doled out to the offender.

"We've had some irregularities," Corrine Hogan, Lincoln County's
clerk, said about this year's marijuana initiative. She said the name
on one petition was "clearly not the right signature." In other
instances the people listed had moved, she said.

Neither incident rose to the level of calling in law enforcement
authorities but the signatures were ruled invalid, she said.

Lander County Clerk Gladys Burris said on one of the marijuana
initiative petitions this year, a husband had signed his wife's name
and had indicated that he had done so. Law enforcement was not
notified in that instance but the signature was ruled invalid, she
said.