Election sideshow last thing North Las Vegas circus needs
August 4, 2011 - 1:00 am
There’s a common question asked in the North Las Vegas circus disguised as an election.
Why can’t officials just ask the guy who voted in Ward 4 when he lived in Ward 3 whom he voted for? Then folks would know whether Wade Wagner won by one vote or whether the race for councilman was a tie with Richard Cherchio.
Why? Because it’s un-American, that’s why. The secret ballot is important to our electoral system. We treasure it, we abide by it. (Except for pollsters, who always ask how you will vote.)
So why hasn’t anyone in the media asked the man who shouldn’t have voted in Ward 4 how he voted?
Partly, it’s because Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax has been compelling and protective when news folks ask for the man’s name, though it’s public record and the attorneys know his name. Lomax said the voter did nothing wrong; the error was entirely the fault of the poll worker. The voter explained he had recently moved and the poll worker allowed him to vote anyway.
Lomax said he will provide the man’s name if a formal request is filed, but he made it clear he thought it was a lousy idea.
In full agreement with Lomax is attorney Bradley Shrager, who represents Cherchio.
A Wagner attorney asked the question of Lomax, and both sides received the name. “I never would have asked,” Shrager said. “In America, we don’t ask people how they vote; it’s unseemly in a democracy.”
The second reason against asking how a vote was cast: How do you know if the voter is telling the truth? Anything the voter says two months after the June 7 election is unreliable as evidence, Shrager said.
The most compelling reason why asking how the Lone Voter voted is a waste of time? He’s apparently no longer the Lone Voter: He’s part of a duo, maybe a trio of questionable votes cast.
Fellow columnist John L. Smith staked out the home of one of those other voters, Greg Mich’l, and asked him whether he voted in the North Las Vegas election, though he lives in Las Vegas. Mich’l freely admitted he did. He registered at the North Las Vegas home of his brother when a Wagner supporter provided the documents to register there.
If the union stagehand had actually lived there, it would have been no big deal.
But he doesn’t. He claimed he didn’t know he was doing anything wrong because he thought the election was countywide.
That makes a second vote that definitely shouldn’t have been cast in the council race. He told Review-Journal reporter Lynnette Curtis that he had voted for Wagner.
The third questionable vote was cast by North Las Vegas Mayor Shari Buck’s son Jordan, a student who registered in Provo, Utah, but never voted there. Instead, he voted in North Las Vegas. Buck is a staunch supporter of Wagner, a dentist, so presumably, her son voted for him. That situation is far less troublesome to me because a lot of students register at school and at their home.
But what I think doesn’t matter.
What matters is the opinion of District Judge Jessie Walsh, who was assigned the case filed last week by Cherchio against Wagner. Cherchio contested the June 7 election on the basis of malfeasance by an election worker and invalid ballots cast by “at least” two other people — the stagehand and Buck’s son.
Too bad it wasn’t a tie so that a card draw could decide. That would be cheaper than a new election. A new election for cash-strapped North Las Vegas looks highly probable, though Wagner is already sworn in.
Truly, North Las Vegas is a circus, and not of the clever Cirque du Soleil variety. With all its problems and disputes this year, including a silly sewer spat, North Las Vegas is more like the circus of horrors.
Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Email her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call her at (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/Morrison