Judge OKs Krasner election recount

Assembly candidate Lisa Kranser won her day in court Thursday, as District Judge Elliott Sattler ruled that a scheduled recount of election results in the Assembly District 26 race will begin Friday.

Kranser has sought a recount after losing to incumbent Assemblyman Randy Kirner, R-Reno, by 11 votes.

Sattler rejected the arguments Kirner's lawyer, David O'Mara, that the recount should not proceed because Kranser had violated the law in the way she informed Kirner about the precincts she selected for the initial sample recount.

Kirner and O'Mara also felt that if the recount was to proceed, it should not include a review of the damaged, rejected and duplicated absentee ballots.

"Counting damaged and duplicate ballots is not a recount but an election process," O'Mara argued.

The recount is now scheduled to begin Friday at 1:30 p.m.

"The judge did a good job in applying the law to the facts in this instance," Krasner said. "And the interest of justice and fairness will be served, so will the will of the people."

The recount, which was originally scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. Friday was moved back to the afternoon to give Kirner a better chance to appeal — if that is his wish. The legal documents on which to base an appeal are not expected to be filed until noon.

Registrar Luanne Cutler said the recount of the initial seven precincts should be finished by 6 p.m.

"It would merely be an estimate," Culter said about finishing by 6 p.m.

Kirner was not in the courtroom since he had business in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. So he had not discussed the possibility of an appeal with O'Mara.

"Everybody has a right to appeal a judge's decision and, as you know, election cases usually end up in the Supreme Court," O'Mara said. "But I am not saying it is likely we are going to appeal this case. The purpose of this legal action was not to preclude someone from having their votes counted. The process, unfortunately, is not written out in a way where the registrar knows what to do."

This will be the first recount for Cutler since she became registrar in the summer of 2013.

The controversy about the recount centered on absentee ballots, since a late-night "glitch," delayed their reporting on the night of the election.