Recall attempt of Nevada senators was invalid, audit finds

CARSON CITY — A larger, more sophisticated review of recall petition signatures last year would have led the Nevada Secretary of State’s office to invalidate recall efforts against two Democratic state senators, according to a report by state auditors.

The Secretary of State’s office concurred with the finding by the governor’s finance office, included in a broader report on state elections division procedures released Wednesday.

“Recent recall activities in Nevada have uncovered potential weaknesses in the recall signature verification methodology provided for in (state statute),” Secetary of State Barbara Cegavkse wrote in her official response, which is included in the report.

Recall petitions backed by Republicans were filed against Democrat Sens. Nicole Cannizzaro of Las Vegas and Joyce Woodhouse of Henderson last fall. A district court judge in April invalidated the recall drive, ruling that it had insufficient signatures. An appeal is pending.

But a different method for validating signatures on such petitions might have ended the effort before it reached the courts.

To set a recall election, Nevada law requires a petition with signatures from 25 percent of voters who cast ballots in the most recent election for that seat. If the Secretary of State’s office determines that a petition meets that threshold, elections officials in the relevant jurisdiction then need to verify that enough signatures are valid.

Under state law, they do this via a fixed methodology, randomly selecting a sample of 500 signatures or 5 percent of the total, whichever is greater. The percentage of valid signatures in that sample is then applied to the total number of signatures to determine if the recall election can proceed.

But the state’s methodology “does not incorporate other statistical elements into its methodology, such as risk or margin of error,” the audit found, leading to a potentially flawed result.

The audit team recommended that the state adopt Oregon’s recall verification procedure, which relies on a 10 percent sample size and factors in for statistical variations such as margin of error. If the initial review turns up insufficient signatures, Oregon looks at a second sample of 10 percent plus one.

Using the Oregon method, the recall petitions senators would have failed by more than 1,000 signatures each, auditors found, confirming the “court-issued ruling of insufficiency” in April.

In her concurrence, Cegavske said changing the procedure would depend on the legislature and governor or a legislative commission.

Contact Bill Dentzer at bdentzer@reviewjournal.com or 775-461-0661. Follow @Dentzernews on Twitter.

Report 19-01 Secretary of State Elections Division by Las Vegas Review-Journal on Scribd