The Nevada Secretary of State's office directed the Nye County clerk Monday to begin verifying signatures on a petition to recall County Commissioner Peter Liakooulos.

County Clerk Sam Merlino said a raw count conducted by her office turned up 759 signatures on the petition. That raw count was turned in to the secretary of state's office last Friday.

The next step is verifying the petition signatures to see if all who signed are registered to vote in District 5.

Recall organizers need at least 670 valid signatures, or one-fourth the number of voters in county commission District five during the Nov. 7, 2006, election.

Merlino was instructed to verify a minimum of 500 signatures. The county clerk's office has nine working days, or by Jan. 18, to complete that job.

While representatives of political parties have voter registration lists, Merlino said only the county clerk's office has the voter registration cards to check the signatures against those on the petition.

An analysis by the Pahrump Valley Times showed some of the handwriting was strikingly similar on several pages of the petitions.

Matt Griffin, Nevada deputy secretary of state for elections, said those signing the petition only need to sign their name. Petitioners were also asked to print their name and address in each box, but Griffin said another party could fill out that information.

The accidental inclusion of a page with a nominating petition for Pat Garlough as commissioner, that was included in the recall petition submitted by Elliott Brainard, merely means those two signatures on that page of the nominating petition will be invalid.

The 99 signatures collected by Brainard for the recall are still valid, Griffin said.

Petition supporters Harley Kulkin and Bill Garlough said some people who circulated petitions ended up signing it twice, because the notary public wanted their signatures at the time the petitions were turned in.

Liakopoulos said he will be presenting his own analysis verifying the petitions to the secretary of state's office and county clerk.

"It does not appear that they have the numbers," Liakopoulos said without elaborating.

On another matter, the Nye County district attorney's office just received the sheriff department's investigation of criminal charges of bribery against Liakopoulos on Wednesday. Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett, said he's already talked to the Nevada attorney general's office about taking the case. The Nye County Commission would later have to approve expenditures reimbursing the attorney general's office, he said.

Liakopoulos was arrested Dec. 19, two days after voting down a half-cent sales tax increase. The sheriff's department charges Liakopoulos agreed to support the sales tax increase if the Pahrump Town Board agreed to a lease for a veterans' museum and appointed his wife as curator.

The town board failed to pass the requests and Liakopoulos provided the swing vote as county commissioners decided 3-2 not to pass the half-cent sales tax hike.