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.
(Photo by Heath Haussamen)
New Mexico county clerks said Wednesday it was taking them hours to print out voter sign-in rosters because of slow computers at the Secretary of State’s office.
The Secretary of State’s office says the problem is being resolved, but nervous clerks are working out a Plan B.
“How ridiculous is this? I can’t believe this is happening now. …The only response I got [from the SOS office] is ‘something happened to the servers’ and they don’t know what is happening or how soon they will be up,” San Miguel County Clerk Melanie Rivera told The Independent.
Other clerks said it was taking them hours to print simple voter statistic reports.
In fact, several clerks told the New Mexico Independent that if the problem isn’t fixed quickly it could become “a nightmare” for them this weekend when they need to print two copies of the sign-in rosters.
Clerks are preparing “Plan B” just in case
“To remedy the delay in jobs being processed a procedure is being implemented in coordination with the vendor to alleviate delays,” Venkatesh Dhagumudi, the IT director for the Secretary of State’s office, wrote in an e-mail to The Independent.
But if the problem isn’t fixed soon, county clerks may have to manually update the rosters with records identifying who has voted early or absentee.
Rivera said it would take her staff hours to go through printouts of Excel spreadsheets marking off each one of the 1,200 early voters, and about 1,000 absentee voters in San Miguel County.
“I can’t even imagine what bigger counties will have to do,” said Rivera.
San Juan County Clerk Debbie Holmes said if she has to go to Plan B she doesn’t expect it will impact waiting times outside polling places on Tuesday, but “it will have an impact on my staff’s overtime budget.”
Bernalillo County uses different software
The clerk for the most populous county in the state says she doesn’t anticipate a problem.
“We’re using Auto Vote, another software program, and updating it nightly,” said Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver. “We can print our voter sign-in rosters from that.”
While the problem wasn’t an issue in the primary election there were some issues in 2008.
Rivera told The Independent that clerks expressed their concerns about server access and slow printing during a primary election school hosted by Herrera in April, but they received assurances then that it would not be a problem during the general election. Rivera says she understands no additional servers were purchased.
