Democrat sues Heller over election

RENO - A citizen activist has sued Secretary of State Dean Heller, alleging he's withholding election records that could cast doubt on President Bush's 21,500-vote victory over John Kerry in Nevada.

Patricia Axelrod wants a judge to order Heller and his elections deputy, Ronda Moore, to hand over dozens of pages of documents to prove whether "Bush stole this election."

Among other issues, Axelrod's suit filed Tuesday in Carson District Court, seeks an explanation for about 10,000 "undervotes" in the state's two most populous counties - Clark and Washoe. Undervotes are ballots that don't register a vote for a certain candidate.

"My concern is that there has been human malfeasance and machine malfunction, which combined have swayed our blue state into a red," Axelrod, a Reno Democrat, said Thursday.

Heller said all citizens, including Axelrod, are free to examine the election records in question at his office, but must pay a copying fee of $1 per page.

In her suit, Axelrod seeks both preliminary and final, official election documents from all 17 Nevada counties, as well as all documents on undervoting in the counties.