Sen. Reid Still Nevada Victor After Recount

Nine days after the election, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) declared victory again Thursday when his narrow win over Republican Rep. John E. Ensign survived a special hand-count of 5,942 paper ballots.

“The election is over, the people of Nevada have spoken,” Reid said.

The revised tally showed Ensign picking up an extra 100 votes. But Reid too was credited with 42 more, so Ensign gained a net 58 votes on the 459-vote margin Reid had posted after election day, meaning the incumbent Democrat was elected to a third term by 401 votes out of more than 416,000 cast across Nevada.

But Ensign aides insisted that the fight isn’t over and that the conservative congressman still might demand a formal recount of the statewide tally. Ensign hasn’t decided whether to make that move, campaign manager Mike Slanker said.

Reid had declared victory the day after the election, but Washoe County held up its final results after discovering that the mail-in ballots had to be manually tabulated because the margins were off, causing the ovals to line up in the wrong columns in some cases.

Problems with the election computer’s security system and a series of database crashes compounded the problem, delaying the ballots’ certification, said Laura Dancer, Washoe County registrar of voters.

The Nevada Supreme Court won’t officially verify statewide results until Nov. 25, and Ensign will have until Dec. 2 to decide whether to challenge the overall numbers.

Former Nevada Gov. Robert List, Ensign’s campaign manager in Washoe County, said he would urge the candidate to push for a statewide recount. He indicated that the Republican Party might be willing to pay for it.

“That certainly would be my recommendation,” List said.