Gates recall petition verification process nears conclusion

Charles Bennion, leader of a group trying to recall County Chairwoman Yvonne Atkinson Gates, tries to sound optimistic when asked how the full verification of signatures from his failed petition is going.

"I think it'll be close," said Bennion, who has spent the last week monitoring the verification process undertaken by Clark County and state election officials.

But a few beats later, Bennion sounds like a man already anticipating defeat.

"It's hard to tell if we will or won't, but if not then we have a list of those we did sign," Bennion said during a recent break in the verification process. "That's a great jumping point for us to move forward."

Aviva Gordon, an attorney for Gates who also has been monitoring the signature check, said she was confident the full verification would validate the random sample of 503 votes that failed to produce the number needed to trigger a special election.

Sources knowledgeable of the process have confided that the full signature check is following the random sample on which Secretary of State Dean Heller last month based his decision to fail the recall petition.

But Clark County Registrar of Voters Kathryn Ferguson said she could not say whether officials have found enough valid signatures to prompt a special election because they still had a full day of auditing to conduct today. Also the secretary of state still had its investigation to conclude before releasing the final results.

Heller said he plans to announce the results Thursday at a 10:30 a.m. news conference.

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