Nye County Commissioner Peter Liakopoulos has filed a challenge to his recall petition, stating it contains only 596 valid signatures, or well short of the 670 necessary to call for a special election.

He also includes allegations of forgery.

The analysis by Liakopoulos shows 56 people signed the petition who are not registered to vote in Nye County. Another 65 signers have either wrong addresses or don't live in District 5.

Liakopoulos also submitted 22 duplicate signatures "and what appears to be 16 pages that appear to be in the same handwriting."

The recall campaign needed a quarter of the people who voted in District 5 in the last election to be valid.

Nye County Clerk Sam Merlino said she's double-checking the analysis of a random sample of 500 signatures conducted by her office. Merlino said she hasn't received a challenge from the petition organizers. That isn't usually filed until the results of the analysis are in.

Merlino said she expects to have the results of her verification of the petition signatures available soon.

Liakopoulos' challenge includes affadavits from Virgil and Genevieve Muntean, 4180 Laute Drive, who swore under oath they didn't sign their names on the petitions that were submitted.

Their signatures are on a batch of recall petitions filed by Elliott Brainard, who was among those who signed the initial intent to recall the first-term commissioner. Brainard couldn't be reached for comment by press time.

In a letter to Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller, Liakopoulos wrote:

"These people clearly state that they did not sign the recall petition and that their signatures are forged. It appears to me that several crimes may have been committed, among them forgery, perjury, filing false documents and conspiracy to commit all of these crimes. I am asking you to please look at these documents, investigate and pursue these people."

Much of the letter deals with Liakopoulos' history of his feud with major backers of the recall, like Harley Kulkin, Bill Garlough and Dan Schinhofen.

"You can't go by the addresses because there are some people incorrectly registered," Kulkin replied. "Who knows? We just did the best, providing an opportunity for the people in Pahrump."

Kulkin said the recall campaign was largely ignored by the press.

"I can't ask everybody to see their voter registration card," Kulkin said. He said people circulating the petition showed voters the map of the commission districts.

Liakopoulos' letter includes the statement: "On the January 4, 2008 Eye on Nye show, Harley Kulkin stated that he might run again for county commissioner if he could get me recalled and get Mrs. Pat Garlough on the board."

Pat Garlough ran unsuccessfully against Liakopoulos in the August 2006 Republican Party primary. Her name was submitted on a nominating petition for a candidate to replace Liakopoulos, should he be recalled.

The Liakopoulos challenge states Pat Garlough was gathering signatures for her nominating petition at the same time she was collecting recall signatures, in violation of a state law requiring the two petitions be separate.