Another Candidate Questions Washoe County Registrar of Voters
Here comes senior advocate Marsy Kupfersmith who thought she did everything right, collected 100 signatures she was told she would need to be a nonpartisan candidate in a Washoe County Commissioner race. Turned in the front and back forms with 114 signatures to the Washoe County Registrar of Voters, and waited, and waited, and waited.
Heck, Kupfersmith waited so long Commissioner Mike Clark questioned Interim ROV Cari-Ann Burgess at the June 21, 2024 meeting about the primary election in general, Lily Baran’s race, and Marcy Kupfersmith’s petition.
Interim ROV Carrie Ann-Burgess: “I can’t speak to the past I can only speak to the future. Going forward we have SOPs in our office of how we do things, that has changed since I took over in January, we have been working on them since last November, but going forward we can only get better, I can’t speak to the past I can only speak to right now. Going forward because of the mistakes that were made in this election, I know they are not going to happen in the general election because already have taken steps that it won’t happen again.
Commissioner Mike Clark: Someone who is trying to get on the ballot, who is running for office now, is an independent filled out the proper paperwork, got the required signatures, brought them to you, you sent them to the state I don’t know what is taking place. This person is calling me almost daily, to find out what is taking place, what is taking so long to cure her request to be on the ballot, in the general election.
Interim ROV Cari-Ann Burgess: We had five petitions dropped actually dropped off at our office within 48-hours, so we did what we needed to do to in order to get the raw count to the Secretary of State’s office they had to give it back to and then we started with the signature verification. Mind you this was at the same time that our primary was going on. So we had a certain amount of time to get those petitions done, which we got them done, we had to look at every single signature on four of those five, so you are looking at least 500-600 names that we had to look at to signature verify. We sent the results back to the Secretary of State’s office and they have to look at them and let us know if they are sufficient or not.
Well, it looks like Ms. Burgess claim of “not going to repeat the same mistakes moving forward” lasted only long enough to blow a smokescreen Commission Clark’s way.
One of the mistakes made by the ROV’s office in 2020 and 2022 was lack of communication with candidates and residents. If you read Mrs. Kupfersmith press release, and attached documents, you will quickly learn that she had questions that the Washoe County ROV and Secretary of State’s office simply didn’t answer.
Also, Ms. Burgess, as you were pointing out you had five petitions dropped off within 48-hours, from the conversation we had with Mrs. Kupfersmith she pointed out the deadline for the signatures to be turned in was June 6, 2024. Picon inquires of you, how was that a surprise? It is something that should have been known to you and your office be prepared for. We didn’t need the “woe is me” commenting at the BCC meeting, about how 500-600 signatures had to be verified by your office, you were well aware of these petitions being dropped off, and the verification being needed.
Our publisher, Larry Chesney, had a very positive experience with Interim ROV Cari-Ann Burgess, it would seem ‘trying to be a candidate’ Marsy Kupfersmith did not.
Picon calls upon Appointed Commissioner Clara Andriola, why isn’t she stepping in to urge the ROV to get answer to Mrs. Kupfersmith’s questions. Instead, she mutely sat on the dais, at one point whispering to Chair Commissioner Alexis Hill. Andriola said nothing, but perhaps Mrs. Kupfersmith’s running is not part of the plan by Andriola’s team to get Clara elected in November. Might Kupfersmith be the fly in Andriola’s ointment?
Picon urges you to read the documents that were included with Mrs. Kupfersmith’s press release. More and more people at registered nonpartisans in Nevada, the Secretary of State and Registrar of Voters offices need to do better with these processes. Nonpartisans will be running for office, the times they are changes, government needs to keep up.