Secretary Miller orders Prop-13 question off ballot

Secretary of State Ross Miller has ordered county election officials to take the property-tax cutting Proposition 13 question off Nevada's November ballot. The memorandum by elections deputy Matt Griffin cites the ruling Tuesday evening by District Judge Charles McGee disqualifying the petition for a variety of errors in affidavits designed to ensure there is no fraud by petition circulators. The decision invalidates upwards of 7,500 signatures, pulling the total collected below the 58,628 needed to qualify for the ballot. Joel Hansen, who represented petition organizer Sharron Angle and her group We the People of Nevada, said after Tuesday's hearing he would immediately file with the Supreme Court to stay the judge's order. He said it is important to keep the question on the ballot because, if the high court puts it back on, clerks statewide would have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to reprint the ballots. Deadlines for printing those ballots are this week, especially for absentee ballots that must be mailed to citizens overseas and in them military. Griffin said as of their last contact with the court, those documents had not yet been filed so they are proceeding as mandated by the injunction issued by McGee.