The Nevada Constitution says that recall is permitted, if a petition signed by 25% of the last vote for the particular office is submitted. The exact language in the Constitution, to describe how many signatures must be submitted, is “Not less than 25% of the number who actually voted in the state or in the…district.”

A controversy erupted earlier this year when Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller ruled that the State Constitutional language means that only voters who actually voted in the last regular election for the office may sign a recall petition. Most neutral observers probably interpret the State Constitution to mean that “who actually voted” modifies “number”, and therefore the purpose of the “actually voted” language is to be clear that when the petition requirement is calculated, the base should be the number of votes cast for that particular office, not the number of people who put a ballot in the ballot box. Probably the Constitution was worded that way because whoever wrote it was aware that in many states, there nas been confusion about the “number of votes cast”…does it refer to the number of people who showed up to vote, or the number of people who voted for the particular office? This issue has risen in courts all across the nation for over a century. Even the U.S. Supreme Court had to settle this issue in a dispute arising in Guam (Gutierrez v Ada, 528 US 250, 2000).

After Miller issued his interpretation, which made it virtually impossible for any recall petitions to be successfully completed, the Nevada legislature passed SB 156. It clarifies that any registered voter in the district may sign a recall petition, whether that voter happened to have voted in the last election for that office or not. Now, the Las Vegas Sun has run this story in its November 8 issue, suggesting that the new law violates the State Constitution, and also suggesting that Nevada is having a “spate” of recalls. But, as the story then relates, the only recall petitions that have succeeded this year have been in two small cities (Tonopah and Fernley) and in one county (Nye County, concerning a seat on the County Commission). No recall petitions have succeeded against any state elected office-holder; probably there haven’t even been any attempts to recall state legislators or statewide executive officials. Thanks to Joshua Van Vranken for the link.