by April Corbin Girnus, Nevada Current
August 19, 2024

Allowing rural counties to create dedicated election departments and charging presidential candidates a filing fee to appear on the primary ballot are among the proposals that will be considered in next year’s legislative session.

The Joint Interim Standing Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections met Friday to approve its bill draft requests (BDRs) for the 2025 session, which is scheduled to begin on Feb. 3. The committee, which is made up of five Democrats and three Republicans, voted to sponsor four new proposals and reintroduce two bills that were vetoed by Gov. Joe Lombardo in 2023.

Here’s what they approved:

Signatures, incomplete registration notices

The committee will sponsor a bill to allow a voter’s cured signature to become the voter’s signature on file and require the secretary of state’s office to mail notices informing people who have been registered via automatic voter registration that their paperwork is missing information, such as an affiliated political party.

Voter registration is handled at the county level but county clerks expressed concern about adding additional duties to their workload, explained Assemblywoman Erica Mosca, a Las Vegas Democrat and co-chair of the committee. This proposal would shift that administrative responsibility to the state.

The signature component of the BDR is intended to allow voter files to have the best signature on file with the county, which could help voters avoid repeatedly having to cure their ballot. Data on the number of signature cures was not available, but officials from the secretary of state’s office said signature issues are expected to grow as the electorate continues to age and use mail ballots.

Medical issues, particularly among older voters, may impact signatures. But the issue isn’t confined to older voters.

“Frankly, people 18 and up not learning cursive impacts consistency of signatures,” said Deputy Secretary of State for Elections Mark Wlaschin. “So making sure we capture those signatures year to year as we move forward will help us ensure that tool is as accurate as possible.”

Rural registrars of voters

Rural counties could be allowed to establish dedicated election offices under one BDR approved by the committee. Only counties with populations of 100,000 or more — Clark and Washoe — are currently authorized to have registrars of voters offices whose top administrator is solely focused on elections.

Top election officials in rural counties are clerks who must balance overseeing elections with other duties.

“It’s important to understand that Lorena (Portillo) is the registrar of voters in (Clark County), and that is what she does, and that is the only thing that she does,” Scott Hoen, clerk-recorder for Carson City, told the interim committee earlier this year. Meanwhile, rural election officials, “wear other hats at the same time.”

He continued, “I am the clerk; I am the recorder; I run the elections; I am the public administrator, and I am the marriage notary.”

Amy Burgans, the clerk-treasurer for Douglas County, told lawmakers elections take up 90% of her time, leaving little time and energy to focus on the clerk and treasurer parts of her office.

“I am lucky that I have a staff that is super competent when I am knee deep in elections to be able to run the other departments,” she added. “Not all rural counties are that lucky.”

Nevada has seen an exodus of election officials since the 2020 presidential election, with many of them citing unsustainable workloads and increased harassment driven by misinformation and disinformation.

Addressing workload issues and boosting salaries could help staff retention and recruitment, elections officials across the state have said.

Election workers

The committee also approved a bill to allow former felons to become field registrars — people who help register qualified voters. Currently, felons who have been convicted of theft or fraud are barred from working as field registrars.

State Sen. James Ohrenshall, a Las Vegas Democrat, described the proposal as being in line with legislation passed in recent sessions that focused on rehabilitating and reintegrating people into society after they have successfully completed incarceration, probation and parole. Most notable among those efforts was the automatic restoration of voting rights for former felons.

Republicans on the committee opposed the BDR.

State Sen. Heidi Seevers O’Gara (formerly Seevers Gansert), a Reno Republican, said the state should continue to ban felons convicted of theft or fraud and consider expanding the ban to include felons who have committed certain other crimes.

“I would be concerned about felons who have a history of violence or assault,” she said. “We need some safeguards. We should add more limitations.”

Assemblyman Greg Hafen, a Pahrump Republican, said he was concerned about potentially allowing someone who has been convicted of election fraud to help register voters.

Wlaschin acknowledged the concern and said the issue could be discussed by lawmakers during the legislative process, adding, “The intent as of right now is to not be restrictive in any way, shape or form.”

Filing fee for presidential preference primary

The committee is backing a proposal to establish a $1,000 filing fee for candidates wishing to participate in the presidential preference primary.

Currently, there is no filing fee for participation in the state-run, non-binding presidential preference primary, which was established by the 2023 Legislative Session. Officials from the secretary of state’s office are concerned that scores of people might file for the presidential preference primary just to see their name on the ballot. That could expand the physical length of the ballot and result in additional costs to the state.

The Democratic presidential preference primary held in February was won by President Joe Biden and included a dozen other candidates, only one of whom, Marianne Williamson, had anything approaching public name recognition. In the Republican presidential preference primary, None of the Above defeated former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and a half-dozen other candidates, two of whom had withdrawn from the race.

The election cost the state $1.7 million, said Chief Deputy Secretary of State Gabriel Di Chiara, and “if ballots had been twice as long the cost would have been significantly higher.”

The filing fee, he added, helps ensure that each candidate “is invested and has some skin in the game.”

Ohrenshall described the proposed filing fee as “at the lower end” of the range charged across the country. On the higher end, Kansas and Oklahoma charge $10,000 and $5,000, respectively. On the lower end, Colorado charges $500.

The filing fee would apply only to Democrats and Republicans in the presidential preference primary.

Seevers O’Gara noted that Nevada charges Senate candidates a $500 filing fee.

Independent presidential candidates must pay a $250 filing fee to appear on the general election ballot. The secretary of state’s office is not proposing adjusting that filing fee, said Di Chiara, in part because those candidates already have the additional requirement of gathering and submitting signatures to gain access.

Resurrecting vetoed bills

Assembly Bill 246 from the 2023 Legislative Session would have required the state and counties to provide voting materials in certain languages if their limited-English proficient population reached a certain threshold — 20,000 statewide or 5,000 in a county. Those thresholds for ensuring language access go beyond existing federal requirements.

Lombardo vetoed AB246, writing in his message that Nevada’s existing laws “sufficiently accomplish the goal of ensuring language accessibility in accordance with federal law” and that “local election officers are already empowered to provide election materials in additional languages at their discretion.”

The legislative and operations joint committee on Friday voted to reintroduce the bill. The vote fell on party lines, with the committee’s three Republicans opposing.

“There was a reason it was vetoed,” said Seevers O’Gara, who voted for AB246 during the last legislative session.

The second vetoed bill the committee will reintroduce is Assembly Bill 243, which made a variety of changes to interim legislative committees. Lombardo in his veto message cited “broad disagreement amongst legislators over management of their own branch of government” as the reason he did not support that bill.

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