Nevada secretary of state told to reduce copying fees

(AP) - A judge has ruled that Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller must cut its page-copying fee from $1 to 50 cents - but the Reno woman who challenged the $1 fee said she'll appeal because the amount is still too high.

Carson City District Judge Bill Maddox said he was reluctant to interfere with Heller's office activities, but added he wasn't persuaded that the $1 fee was reasonable and based on actual costs for copying.

The order applies to copying fees for standard-size documents, and lets Heller's office increase copying fees if extra costs are incurred.

Patricia Axelrod, who challenged the $1 fee, said Tuesday she plans to appeal the ruling by Maddox because "I don't believe this is right. Every citizen should have free access to presidential election records."

"The secretary of state is still guilty on the charges of breaking the public records law."

Axelrod had sought to verify the result of November's presidential election. A Democrat, she was able to see the documents last fall but claimed in her lawsuit that Heller's office refused to provide copies and charged excessive copying fees.

Heller, a Republican, said Axelrod simply didn't want to pay the fee, and his office didn't have some documents she requested.

Axelrod sought preliminary and final official election documents from all 17 Nevada counties. She said she wanted to prove her theory that malfeasance and machine malfunctions "swayed our blue state into a red."

Axelrod said when she filed the lawsuit in December that citizens have a right to know if George Bush fairly won the presidential contest over Democrat John Kerry.

Bush won Nevada's five electoral votes with a 21,500-vote margin over Kerry.