$84,000 OK’d for Nevada voter registration law

The Board of Examiners on Tuesday approved $84,000 from the contingency fund for DMV to begin implementing the voter-approved voter registration program.

Voters in November approved Question 5 mandating the Department of Motor Vehicles register everyone who shows up for a license or registration renewal to vote. The statute requires people to either register or sign a form saying they don’t want to.

The problem with the question is no one considered the potential cost of things such as determining a person’s eligibility to vote.

The $84,000 must still be approved by the Interim Finance Committee which meets in about a week.

In addition, the board will soon see a request for $234,000 from the Secretary of State’s Elections Division to begin developing a system to register voters.

Elections Deputy Wayne Thorley said last month that how much the new law will cost depends on how it’s implemented. He said in the worst case scenario, if his office had to develop a statewide voter registration database, it could cost $4.8 million.

He said, however, if the DMV were to send registration information directly to county registrars there would be no impact on his office.

No matter how it gets implemented, he said it will cost the counties. Carson City Clerk Aubrey Rowlatt said their best estimates are it will cost $186,225 in office equipment and software plus added voting machines and $61,200 a year for at least one added staffer, postage and printing.

Clark County has estimated it will cost it $200,000 in programming costs along with one-time and recurring costs of up to $500,000 in staff, printing and other things.