Petition to get Douglas County VHR ban on the ballot fails to get enough signatures

DOUGLAS COUNTY, Nev. - The Douglas County residents who sought to get an initiative on the November ballot to ban vacation home rentals (VHRs) have failed to get the required signatures.

On Wednesday, the Douglas County Clerk’s Office filed a "Certificate of Petition Insufficiency" related to the petition that had circulated to amend the ordinance, banning in neighborhoods and allowing them only commercial and tourist-zoned areas.

Petitioners needed 4,389 valid signatures and they ended up with 4,277 accepted, 112 short.

The clerk’s office, practicing standard petition verification protocols, found 124 address discrepancies, 127 instances of no circulator affidavit, and 231 signatures not matching, among other discrepancies, totaling 574 rejected signatures.

Consistent with NRS 295.260, they selected a random sample of 500 signatures for verification. The random sample was selected by numbering each of the 109 documents and then drawing numbers 1-109 corresponding to the document number until the threshold of 500 signatures was reached. Next, the clerk examined the 500 signatures for verification. The random sample showed the number of valid signatures was 90 percent or more, and less than 100 percent of the 500 samples. Therefore, as required by NRS 295.260(2)(a), the Clerk's Office continued verifying the remaining documents.

“My office has followed standard verification processes as required by Nevada law, and found discrepancies in the data,” said Douglas County Clerk-Treasurer Amy Burgans. “I place the utmost importance on a fair and equitable democratic process, and will follow protocols to ensure that petition verification is accurate and lawful.”

Burgans determined that 4,277 of those signatures were valid signatures of registered voters in Douglas County by examining the registration records on file in Burgans' office, and from the examination, she determined the following results:

In the Certification of Petition Insufficiency:
TOTAL NUMBER OF SIGNATURES SUBMITTED - 4,852
TOTAL NUMBER OF SIGNATURES REMOVED PER REQUEST OF SIGNATORY - 1
TOTAL NUMBER OF SIGNATURES EXAMINED - 4,851
TOTAL NUMBER OF SIGNATURES REJECTED - 574
TOTAL NUMBER OF SIGNATURES ACCEPTED - 4,277
TOTAL NUMBER OF SIGNATURES REQUIRED - 4,389

“During the course of the verification process, it was determined four of the documents lacked a circulator's affidavit,” Burgans said. “In this instance, one document was missing the jurat language, one document was missing the notary public stamp and two of the documents were missing the signature of the notary. Due to a lack of a circulator's affidavit, the four documents do not comply with the requirements of Nevada's Constitution Article 19 §3 and thus none of the associated signatures on the four documents can be verified as genuine.”

As required, the Douglas County Board of County Commissioners had to make a finding of an anticipated financial impact should the ballot measure be passed by voters. The total anticipated financial effect from changes to
the VHR Ordinance was found that annually the lost revenues would be $5,191,209 - lost Transient Occupancy Tax of $4,379,344, and lost fees, fines, and penalties in the amount of $811,865. The total anticipated financial effect to Douglas County, specifically, would be annual lost revenues of $2,106,543, which includes lost TOT in the amount of $1,294,678 and lost revenue from fees of $811,865.

More information on County petitions can be found here.