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.
New Mexico stands on the cusp of a possible election day meltdown that could turn the Land of Enchantment into the Florida or Ohio of 2008.
But Gov. Bill Richardson, the self-proclaimed go-to guy in New Mexico’s hour of need, has been traveling the world in service to Barack Obama and has done little to ensure that New Mexico will have a smooth election. He even has joked about voting in New Mexico.
The governor’s office said last week that any questions about elections preparedness are better put to the Secretary of State. But that office, headed by Secretary of State Mary Herrera, is already mired in an array of Election Day crises, including having no state elections coordinator in place for months.
Meanwhile, a compilation of Richardson’s travels show that over the past several months the governor has been to Big Sky, Montana, to Bogota, Colombia, and to Cape Town, South Africa. He’s been to Puerto Rico and Portland, Oregon and acted as a judge at a debate at Oklahoma Christian University. He’s been to Washington and addressed the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia. And he talked policy in Atlantic City and Chihuahua, Mexico, and West Palm Beach, Florida, and he’s raised campaign money in New Jersey for Sen. Obama.
What he hasn’t done is fixed the broken voting system in his home state. And the system shows many serious signs of possible failure, from unmaintained machines that may malfunction, to lack of guidance from the Secretary of State’s office on voting on tribal lands, to the agency sending 11,805 voters faulty addresses or locations for their polling places.
A spokesman for the governor said that Richardson is doing all he can.
“Governor Richardson takes the election process very seriously and he has agreed – as a member of the Board of Finance and during the recent special legislative session – to provide additional funding requested by the Secretary of State and county clerks for the primary and general elections,” said Gilbert Gallegos, of the extra $1.6 million Richardson placed on the special session agenda last month.
An election disaster in the making?
This general election, which begins in earnest Oct. 7 with absentee voting, promises to be one of the most important in New Mexico’s history as hundreds of thousands of New Mexicans choose between Barack Obama and John McCain in addition to selecting a U.S. Senator, three congressmen and numerous state and local officials. Because it is considered a key battleground in the presidential race, New Mexico has received a fair amount of attention from both Obama and McCain.
Of the concerns local elections officials cite, the one that looms large for many is the possibility that some of the state’s voting tabulators — which scan and read paper ballots –will malfunction on Election Day. Most haven’t been maintained since they were bought, and many local elections officials blame Nebraska-based ES&S, which sold New Mexico $18 million worth of ballot tabulators in 2006. The company has so far refused to provide maintenance — and training for local voting machine technicians — because many counties have balked at signing an agreement that they say is too expensive. ES&S has recently said it will train local voting machine technicians, but the cost hasn’t been disclosed and it is unclear whether the training will occur before Election Day.
Gov. Bill Richardson, however, could have moved the issue off the table earlier this year. Instead he vetoed a bill in March that could have paid for the preventative maintenance on the voting tabulators for the 2008 election cycle. The bill would have paid roughly $1.3 million a year in costs to maintain the machines. But Richardson killed the bill, saying in his veto message that the requirement for the state to assume maintenance costs was left unfunded by the Legislature.
“I think the counties have to assume some responsibility,” he said at the time. “But I will make sure the counties … can sustain the expenses.”
Asked last week if Richardson regretted the decision, Gallegos said, “As I recall that was vetoed because it was passed without an appropriation, which means there was no money to implement it. I also recall that the Secretary of State recommended a veto.”
James Flores, a spokesman for Secretary of State Mary Herrera, had no comment on Gallegos’ statement that she had recommended the veto.
There are other indicators that troubles may lie ahead.
Most recently more than 11,000 voters around the state have gotten incorrect information in advance of this year’s general election, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
And as the Independent has reported, some officials also worry about the performance of memory cards — the brains of the voting tabulators. Prior to this year’s June 3 primary, the cards had a higher failure rate than the machines, causing some officials to express concern and for many counties to stock up on extras.
Now the secretary of state’s office is scrambling to make sure New Mexico has a contract on Election Day for machines that break down.
The state currently has a contract in place to fix broken machines, but it runs out later this month. Flores said on Friday there is a “possibility” that the contract will be in place before the election.
The Secretary of State’s office also has not offered guidance to local elections officials on how to run alternative voting sites on Native American land or how to restore felons’ right to vote.
The Secretary of State’s office has said it can’t guarantee the necessary guidelines will be in place before the election.
Where is King Bill?
Richardson’s ostensible distance from the issue of New Mexico’s elections preparedness appears to run counter to his demonstrated penchant for getting involved when he wants something done.
He called a special legislative session last month over objections of some powerful state lawmakers to give New Mexicans tax rebates to counter a sluggish economy. He has pushed aggressively for funding for the Rail Runner commuter train and to stay on an aggressive schedule to open service to Santa Fe. And he twisted arms and cajoled state lawmakers when the state Legislature voted to convert to a single, statewide paper ballot-based election system in 2006. As in the other cases, he pushed for paper ballots over the objection of critics, some of whom worried about how quickly the state was changing over.
Richardson also has named “czars” — or experts he taps — to address significant challenges he thinks the state has to overcome. Richardson named a DWI czar in 2004 to address a perennial problem that has dogged New Mexico. And he has indicated an openness to appointing a corrections system czar.
When asked if Richardson intended on naming an elections czar, Gallegos did not respond.
