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.
The Associated Press has a story that looks at something that didn’t pass this year’s legislative session but might affect elections — the question of whether or not the state will pay for maintenance of New Mexico’s voting machines.
According to the AP, the office of the secretary of state is going to cancel “software and firmware maintenance and support agreements with the sole vendor of the voting equipment, Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software, known as ES&S, because lawmakers didn’t provide money to continue them. ”
What will this do?
“It really puts us in a very, very bad situation,” Sheryl Nichols, chief deputy clerk in Los Alamos County and president of a county clerks group affiliated with the New Mexico Association of Counties, said Wednesday.
If vote tabulating equipment malfunctions in future elections, she warned, county officials might be forced to hand-tally ballots — a time-consuming process.
The maintenance agreements expire April 25.
What happened was that in 2006, then Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron bought the machines from ES&S using money received from the federal government’s Help America Vote Act. “But unlike some other states,” the Associated Press wrote, “New Mexico didn’t use the federal money to pay for multi-year maintenance agreements for its new voting system.”
Now, unless legislation is passed in a special session later this year, county clerks may face hand-tallying.
