(Sept. 20) -- The controversy surrounding the changing of the wording on ballot question 3 is also creating problems for local election officials. Thousands of absentee ballots have already been printed and are ready to be mailed out later this week. But now with this latest decision, the office isn't going to be able to meet that deadline and possibly keeping some people from being able to vote in November -- including soldiers overseas.
Larry Lomax, with the Clark County Elections Department, said, "It's just frustrating right now because it's like a no-win situation." Lomax has to re-print more than 70,000 absentee ballots, ballots that are suppose to be mailed out on Thursday. But that's not going to happen because of the legal battles that continue to bog down the process.
"We go to court on everything. No one accepts no for an answer. There's money behind all these organizations, they're all special interest groups and they're all willing to go to court," Lomax said.
Besides missing federal and state deadlines, it's also going to cost the county $500,000 to re-print all those ballots. And that amount could climb if more legal moves are made.
Registrar of Voters, Larry Lomax says, "We'll do all we can to get these out as fast as we can, but this is a potential issue. There's no question about it and as we sit here talking right now, we're perhaps told there's two other questions -- questions 4 and 5 -- that might be litigated now."
It's a process that not only frustrates Lomax but Secretary of State Dean Heller as well. "The courts can do whatever they want and as long as they continue to side with special interest groups on their decision making process, we'll never see this get better until we get people on the courts that recognize the difficulty that they're causing."
"At some point in time somebody's got to draw a line in the sand and say this is it. No more of this will be tolerated. It's more important that our soldiers and sailors get to vote on these issues than it is that these special interest groups keep trying to win their way up in court," Lomax concluded.
There is an official deadline as to just how late changes can be made to the wording of a ballot question and that deadline was several months ago. Officials worry that more legal challenges could jeopardize the credibility of Nevada's results in November -- similar to the situation in Florida during the 2000 presidential election because the race was so close and there were questions of absentee ballots not being counted in time.
