Wednesday, March 27, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
Nevada's moment in the spotlight has faded into black.
With the Republican primary and his party's nomination in hand, Bob Dole, who made a touch-and-go landing in Las Vegas on Saturday, is expected to step off the Nevada stage for a while.
That means no TV advertising and very little hoopla other than grass-roots efforts by local loyalists.
The same is true of President Clinton's campaign, which had aired TV ads in an effort to darken Dole's free-media glow.
Dole on Tuesday collected all 14 of Nevada's delegates to the Republican National Convention in San Diego in August.
He won 48 percent of the vote in Clark County and 52 percent statewide in Nevada's first-ever mail-in ballot primary, which did not lack drama. Charges of fraud, cost overruns and low turnout threaten to drop the curtain on mail-in primaries.
Publisher Steve Forbes, who tried to reach voters via direct mail before ending his candidacy this month, finished second with 19 percent. Television commentator Pat Buchanan, who plans to push his conservative agenda at the August convention, garnered 15 percent of the vote.
"None of These Candidates" -- an option unique to the Nevada ballot -- outpolled eight other GOP hopefuls with 9 percent.
Jerry Dondero, Dole's Nevada steering committee chairman, expressed disappointment that Dole failed to break the 50 percent barrier in Clark County.
"If everyone cast their ballot today (Tuesday), I think he'd get 80 percent of the vote," Dondero said.
Turnout based on 162,201 registered Republicans was 46.7 percent in Clark County. Subtract an estimated 9,000 inactive GOP registrations -- those about to be purged from rolls for not voting -- and turnout was slightly more than 49 percent.
The statewide turnout of about 50 percent wasn't much higher than the 49 percent who voted in the Democratic and Republican primaries combined in 1980.
Ballots were mailed to registered Republicans beginning in early March, when Dole's nomination was still in question.
Clark County Registrar of Voters Kathryn Ferguson had predicted the process was ripe for fraud.
Her forecast came true when Washoe County experienced a snafu with an estimated 8,200 potentially tainted ballots, forcing the resignation of Registrar Brad Lawrence.
High costs also plagued the process. Shortly after Ferguson's office completed its final tally about 7:30 p.m., she estimated the price of the election would be about $200,000 in Clark County alone. That's the amount the entire election was supposed to cost taxpayers statewide.
In Clark County, 19,602 of the 153,364 ballots mailed to registered Republicans were returned to the Election Department as undeliverable, because the voter had moved. That round-trip mailing alone cost taxpayers 89 cents per ballot, or more than $17,000.
Additionally, 2,012 ballots were mailed back blank with no vote, and 63 were negated because they included more than one vote. An estimated 1,450 ballots weren't counted because the return envelopes weren't signed by the voters or because more than one ballot was returned in the same envelope.
Despite those problems, Secretary of State Dean Heller, who stepped in when Lawrence was ousted in Washoe County, defended mail-in balloting.
"With only one race on the ballot and that race decided two weeks ago, this is a good turnout," Heller said. "If there is a silver lining in this, it shows the process works if you follow the law as directed."
However, Heller speculated that a backlash could return the nomination process to caucuses, where followers of one candidate can swamp the election site and dominate the election. Republican backers of evangelist Pat Robertson and Democrats favoring Jesse Jackson and Jerry Brown found success in past elections with that strategy.
Democrats held caucus elections this year, but Clinton was virtually unchallenged, so the conclusion was never in doubt.
"I know there will be a push in the Legislature to go back to the caucuses, where only the political elite select presidential preferences," Heller said.
This primary season, the Clinton campaign spent $30,000 to $40,000 on TV spots promoting the president's desire to reform welfare, said Nevada Democratic Pary Chairwoman Jan Jenkins.
Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev., criticized that strategy, saying ads this early in the campaign are a waste of money. But he conceded there is wisdom is forcing a debate on welfare reform, because the issue is on voters' minds.
"This president understands polls," Ensign said. "There's huge support for welfare reform, about 80 percent. The strongest people on this issue are single mothers that work. Call it the 'angry-single-female' issue."
Ensign, state campaign chairman for Dole, said the Kansan's scaled-down Nevada strategy will rely on direct mail, door-to-door canvassing and phone banks.
"I don't think you'll see Dole ads because you have a limited amount of money to spend, and you have to go with your larger swing states," he said.
Ensign said national rather than state issues will determine which candidate Nevada voters chose.
Ensign said he doesn't think Dole and Clinton will tangle on gaming regulation or nuclear waste disposal. Instead, the first-term congressman expects the candidates to sway Nevadans with debate over welfare and Medicare reform, taxation and the federal budget.
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