Photo by Roger H. Goun

Photo by Roger H. Goun

An audit of Bernalillo County ballots shows vote counting machines have a very low margin of error, differing an average of 1.9 percent from hand-counting, according to the Albuquerque Journal. The audit of ballots cast in the 2006 election was conducted by UNM along with the California Institute of Technology and the University of Utah. It was required by a new state law. Other results indicated that, as far as hand-counting goes, teams of two people count just as accurately as teams of three. Early voting machines had the highest margin of error, perhaps because they have to be able to process many different types of ballots.

 

Speaking of elections, a new national poll has Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama leading Republican John McCain by 52 to 43 percent, the first big lead of the campaign. The Washington Post-ABC News poll indicates that voters are cranky about the economy and they think Obama can do a better job of fixing it. The poll also showed that people might be falling out of love with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain’s running mate; her unfavorable ratings have gone up by 10 points in the last two weeks. Read the Post’s analysis here.

 

And back to local news, The New Mexican has a wrap-up of the second debate among the candidates in the third Congressional district. Not too many surprises there. Democrat Ben Ray Lujan, who has been leading in polls and fundraising, played it safe, saying he didn’t want to cut any programs at Los Alamos National Labs, while Republican Dan East stuck to his talking points, promising lower taxes and professing support for the war in Iraq. Independent Carol Miller provided levity, telling the audience her solar-heated home was so warm she wore shorts. If you want to hear more from the candidates, tune in Thursday morning from 8 a.m. until 9 a.m. on KUNM 89.9 FM.

 

The Santa Fe Reporter is stuck to Public Regulation Committee candidate Jerome Block Jr. like a leech. A really big and painful leech. Reporter Dave Maass has been digging into some campaign finance report issues, including two payments to the San Miguel County Clerk, Paul Maez. Block says the money was for a ranch party, but the band says they didn’t play and the owner of the ranch couldn’t confirm a party ever happened. Uh-oh. SFR demands to know where the $2,500 went. “l don’t (know) about you, but it seems to me that it’s time for Block to produce some check stubs to show who exactly received the $2,500 and for someone to find out who rents PO Box 932 in Las Vegas, NM, where the check was sent,” Maass writes on the paper’s Swing State of Mind blog.

 

A federal judge last week ordered the Otero County Sheriff’s Department to stop immigration raids in the county; the county had been using money that was supposed to be spent on anti-terrorism activities. The Roswell Daily Record reports today that a local radio station has been recording listeners’ complaints. Gabriel Mendes, the host of a Spanish-language morning show on KRDD Radio, told the paper that police harassment of Hispanic residents has sharply increased in the last month. Read more about it here.