I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
In addition to trying to keep the state out of red ink, state lawmakers will take up the equivalent of a legislative parlor trick when they convene this January to resolve a $6 million debt with the federal government.
The Secretary of State’s office said Friday in a letter to a federal elections agency that it will ask the Legislature to retroactively expand the purpose of a 2006 law that set aside $11 million to pay for voting tabulators and other equipment purchased when the state converted to a single, statewide paper ballot system.
Expanding the purpose of the law would allow the state to pay for the $6 million in election-related services New Mexico improperly billed to the federal government from 2004 to 2006. The services were determined to have been incorrectly billed to Washington by a U.S. Election Assistance Commission audit. Released in May, the audit questioned spending of federal funds by the secretary of state’s office under Rebecca Vigil-Giron from 2004 through 2006.
The EAC’s Inspector General found that the state Attorney General’s office did not review an Aug. 26, 2004, letter in which Vigil-Giron agreed to pay a contractor, Armando Gutierrez of A. Gutierrez & Associates Inc., a 17 percent administrative fee, or $1 million. Ultimately, Gutierrez was paid more than $6 million for voter education work.
Gutierrez & Associates produced TV and radio advertisements featuring Vigil-Giron that ran by the thousands in English, Spanish and Navajo leading up to the 2004 general and 2006 primary and general elections.
That work netted Gutierrez & Associates more than $6 million in payments, or roughly a third of all federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) money sent to New Mexico to assist in planning and running the 2004 and 2006 federal elections, according to the audit.
In addition, the audit found that the Gutierrez & Associates could account for only $2.6 million in spending for 44,500 spots of the roughly $4.8 million budgeted for production and voter education, according to state documents and the summary of the audit findings.
Since 2007, the EAC has sought a New Mexico attorney general’s opinion on how many millions of dollars may have been misspent in the voter education campaign, but that opinion has not been rendered and it is unclear when it will be forthcoming.
Vigil-Giron, whose term as secretary of state ended Dec. 31, 2006, has said no wrongdoing occurred, despite the audit’s findings.
If the Legislature approves the request of current Secretary of State Mary Herrera to allow the 2006 law to pay for the improperly billed services, the state still must find a way to resolve the $6 million debt. That likely would come through the state’s attempt to get the federal government to qualify the already-purchased voting equipment as coverable under the Help America Vote Act of 2002, state officials have said. In effect, the state would use federal funds to pay for the voting equipment, thereby satisfying the federal government’s debt.
