Complaints that Clark County
Voting Registrar Kathryn Ferguson illegally opened and
counted absentee ballots before the fall primary election
have been filed with the Nevada Secretary of State's
office, Electric Nevada has learned. 
"We've
received a couple of written complaints, and we are
moving forward," said Assistant Secretary of State
for Elections Pamela Crowell. Six months ago Washoe County voting
registrar Brad Lawrence resigned amid widespread
criticism following illegal opening of several thousand
ballots in a spring mail-in presidential primary. In that
instance, it was never alleged that Lawrence or his staff
actually counted the opened ballots. Crowell declined to say more about
the matter, nor to estimate when the Secretary of State's
Office might have a fuller statement. But from other sources EN
learned that at least one of the complaints included a
sworn affidavit from a temporary worker employed in
Ferguson's office before and after the September 3
primary vote. "Beginning on Thursday, August
29, 1996," swore the Clark County resident, who
asked for anonymity, "I and approximately 17 other
citizens were employed by the Clark County Election
Department and sworn in as an election board to count the
incoming absentee ballots for the September 3rd Primary
Election. "The supervisor was Mr. Bill
Pendarvic, who works under Kathryn Ferguson. "We were instructed to check
off each voter by name, verify signatures for validity,
remove the ballots from the envelopes and the internal
sheaths, and count ballots for three categories:
Republican, Democrat and Other Parties. Each day the
count sheets, ballots, envelopes, and rejected votes were
collected and, I presume, were stored in the Election
Department vault, for counting on election day. "We counted ballots on
Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday." Electric Nevada contacted
the office of registrar Ferguson, but she declined to
comment. Instead she referred all questions to Mary Ann
Miller, legal counsel to the Clark County Election
Department. Miller said that while she couldn't
speak for Ferguson, she could cite the relevant law. "The Nevada statutes allow the
absentee and mail-in ballots to be opened prior to
election day in two circumstances," said Miller.
"One, if you're using a mechanical voting system and
two, if you've appointed an absent ballot counting board.
Actually both of those circumstances exist in Clark
County." She specified the supporting law as
NRS 295.325, subsections 2 and 3, each of which says
voting officials 
"shall, upon receipt of each absent
voter's ballot, make a record of the return and check the
signature on the return envelope against the original
signature of the county clerk's register. If the county
or city clerk determines that the absent voter is
entitled to cast his ballot, he shall deposit the ballot
in the proper ballot box..."
However, neither subsection
authorizes actual counting of the absentee ballots before
election day. Subsection 2 reads: "On election day
the clerk shall deliver the ballot box to the absent
ballot counting board to be counted." And subsection
3 reads: "On election day the county or city clerk
shall deliver the ballot box to the central counting
place."
And on that distinction, Election
Department counsel Miller herself acknowledged that
"The ballots can't be counted, prior to 8 a.m.
election day, but they can be processed."
The affidavit, however, states that
workers were instructed to "count ballots for three
categories: Republican, Democrat and Other Parties,"
after which count sheets, ballots .. and rejected
votes" were taken away and presumably stored.
Patrick McMillan, a candidate in the
primary election for the Republican nomination for
Nevada's second district congressional seat, called on
Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller to remove Ferguson
from office "as you did Washoe's Registrar Brad
Lawrence when he violated the law and opened the ballots
before Election Day.
"At the least it would be
inconsistent and unfair to Mr. Lawrence and Clark County
citizens if you give quarter to Ms. Ferguson that you did
not give to him."
According to McMillan, counting of
the absentee ballots in an area closed to the public and
without public notification violated NRS 293.3602,
subsection 6, and also NRS 293.363.
He also asked "how Ms. Ferguson
could report the final count of the ballots to you on
Wednesday morning [the day after the election -- ed.],
when she still had employees scrutinizing them for
acceptability, all day Wednesday?"
McMillan already has a suit pending
against Ferguson, charging her with a number of unlawful
actions involving her efforts to install the Sequoia AVC
Advantage Model D electronic voting machines. The suit
also charges her with numerous other violations under
Nevada election law.
Full text of McMillan suit.