Nevada’s Secretary of State is reviewing the signatures supporting a nonpartisan candidate for Washoe’s Board of County Commissioners that the county’s Registrar of Voters deemed invalid. The candidate, Marsy Kupfersmith, an advocate for older adults, was never provided a reason her signatures were considered invalid by the registrar—until she sued the county to get answers.
Kupfersmith got more than 100 signatures to support her candidacy in a run against incumbent Republican Clara Andriola.
On Wednesday, Washoe County Second Judicial District Court Judge Kathleen Drakulich appeared to agree with the Washoe County District Attorney’s office that Kupfersmith’s challenge is more appropriate for the secretary of state to review first.
“The Secretary of State’s determination following an appeal of signature verification is final and subject to judicial review in the First Judicial District Court,” Elizabeth Hickman with the DA’s office wrote, citing Nevada law.
“The only reason I’m in court is nobody gave me information.”
Kupfersmith’s attorney faced three attorneys in court, two with the DA’s office and another with the secretary of state’s office. All three said the proper procedure was for Kupfersmith first to petition the state, which she already had done. Kupfersmith’s attorney said he had not had time to review the DA’s response to Kupfersmith’s petition in the local court because it had only been filed earlier that day.
Her local court challenge prompted the Wednesday hearing by Drakulich. George Ott with the Nevada Attorney General’s Office confirmed that signatures supporting Kupfersmith were being reviewed.
The DA’s court filing was the first public response by the Registrar, Cari-Ann Burgess. She finally provided more details about why her office determined why several of Kupfersmith’s signatures were invalid, thereby removing her from the November ballot.
After the hearing, Kupfersmith said that had Burgess’s office provided her with the reasons for the invalid signatures, as she requested on June 24, the court hearing would not have been necessary.
“I wish I had known,” she told This Is Reno. “We got no information until yesterday, and they showed why [some signatures] were disqualified. We had no idea why they rejected 24 signatures.”
An email from the registrar’s office last week provided no detail as to why the signatures were problematic. Kupersmith said she only got a list of why some signatures were disqualified on Tuesday—after filing the petition in court.
Even the cited reasons between last week and Tuesday were contradictory, she added.
“We still did not know until the registrar’s opposition today that the five [signatures] were rejected because they were not dated. I did not know that until yesterday,” she said. “Had they just gotten me what I asked for on June 24, I don’t know that I would have been here.”
