Crosses, checks and partially filled-in bubbles everywhere cheered yesterday. New Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that a vote will count next week even if a bubble on a ballot isn’t fully filled in as long as precinct judges agree on the voter’s intent. Six juveniles face criminal charges related to the hazing episode at Robertson High School’s August pre-season football camp east of Las Vegas. And a dog is registered to vote in Bernalillo County, or so says its owner.

 

State’s top court clears way for more ballots to count as votes

The Associated Press reports today that the New Mexico State Supreme Court has “issued an order optimizing the chances for ballots to be counted when voters don’t mark them properly.”

The wire service goes on: 

The high court upheld the constitutionality of a section of state law that says a vote must be counted if election judges in a precinct unanimously agree what the voter’s intent was. 

The secretary of state, on the advice of the attorney general, wasn’t going to allow that, objecting that the section was unconstitutional. The League of Women Voters sued. 

The ruling affects paper ballots that are hand-tallied — provisional or absentee ballots, for example — on which voters didn’t follow instructions to fill in the oval next to candidates’ names. 

It means a vote could be counted no matter what kind of mark was made, as long as the precinct’s presiding judge and election judges “unanimously agree that the voter’s intent is clearly discernible” — the wording in state law.

 

Six juveniles charged in hazing

The Associated Press reports that six juveniles have been charged “with criminal sexual penetration, kidnapping, conspiracy and other crimes in a hazing incident at an August preseason football camp.”

The wire service goes on:

The charges stem from allegations of sexual assault on younger players by older players at the Robertson High School camp Aug. 11-14 east of Las Vegas.

Charges were filed in Children’s Court in San Miguel County against Santiago Armijo, Michael Gallegos, Steven Garcia, Marcos Gutierrez, Lucas Martinez and Jerek Padilla, the special prosecutor, District Attorney Henry Valdez of Santa Fe, announced Wednesday.

State police issued a 102-page report on the hazing, which involved allegations of sodomy with a broomstick. The police report said younger players were told to “take it like a man” and that their attackers ignored their pleas to stop.

 

Man registers dog to vote

You’ve heard it all your life. Truth is stranger than fiction. Well, this one might fit into that category.

According to the Albuquerque Journal, “Don Pizzolato didn’t expect his dog to end up registered to vote. Sure, he filled out the paperwork after he was approached a few years ago at Wal-Mart. But the Social Security number and birth date Pizzolato made up for his dog were fake.”

The Journal goes on to report:

“I fully expected the form to be returned to me,” Pizzolato said Wednesday in an interview.
Instead, he received a voter registration card in the mail a few weeks later. Now, with all the debate over registration fraud, Pizzolato is going public with the tale of his dog, Tuckup Koepke.