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Recount confirms Kirner's victory over Krasner

A recount has upheld Assemblyman Randy Kirner's 11-vote victory over fellow Republican Lisa Krasner.

County Registrar Luanne Cutler says the recount ended Friday when the Reno lawmaker's margin of victory held up after votes in seven precincts of Assembly District 26 were recounted.

A recount of all votes would have followed had officials found a discrepancy of 1 percent or five votes in any of the sample precincts.

The recount was requested by Krasner. Officials had estimated it would cost her campaign $2,000.

Original Story:

A judge in Reno has ruled against Assemblyman Randy Kirner's request to temporarily block a recount in the tight race between him and fellow Republican Lisa Krasner, who lost by only 11 votes.
The judge made the ruling Thursday evening, after hearing from both sides. 

Lisa Krasner requested a recount after learning she lost by only 11 votes. But how that will be conducted has been the source of controversy. So much that incumbent Randy Kirner asked a judge to temporarily halt the recount on the basis that it would go way beyond what's allowed under Nevada law.

 
"This legal action was not to preclude someone from having their votes counted."

That's David O'Mara who's Kirner's counsel. At issue is whether the registrar can examine all ballots from Election Night during a recount, including rejected ones. Those happen when, for example, a voter picks two candidates for the same race. The machine can't process that, so the registrar copies all the valid choices onto a new so-called duplicate ballot.

Krasner wants the recount to look at those duplicates and the original rejected ones. But Kirner's attorney says that's not okay because the law doesn't consider what should happen if there's a discrepancy between the two ballots.  "

"The process, unfortunately, is not written out in a way that the registrar knows what to do and people will be able to use their subjective nature to determine whether or not the election was valid."

He says the registrar is treating this like a contested election, a different, much more involved process than a recount.

But Krasner's attorney, Brett Sutton, says state law is very clear that, during a recount, the registrar must take the same steps as election night.

"And that's how they were counted the night of election. If there was a damaged or disputed ballot, it was examined and then a duplicate ballot was created. So in order to make sure that duplicate ballot was accurate you have to go back to that original ballot and look at it. That's all we're asking."

Sutton says a contested election is much broader than what they're asking from this recount.

Ultimately, the judge agreed with Krasner's position and the Washoe County Registrar, but it's still unclear what will happen if it turns out some rejected ballots are different than their duplicates. 

Kirner was away on business, but Krasner was at the hearing and she seemed relieved.

Kirner still has the opportunity to appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court. To give him enough time to do that, the judge has asked the registrar to delay the recount until 1:30 Friday afternoon.

The race between the two Republicans for Assembly District 26 was closer than anticipated. Both candidates claimed the other was running an attack campaign. Kirner, who is endorsed by Governor Brian Sandoval, warned that Krasner was an arch-conservative who signed a no tax pledge. Krasner criticized Kirner for his work on the failed Washoe County School District bill, known as AB46.

Will Stone is a former reporter at KUNR Public Radio.
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