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 and smooth elections don’t usually belong in the same sentence. But everything went off without too many hitches Tuesday it appears.
Most of the state’s ballot tabulators worked. The margin was large enough in most races to avert a wearying ballot count, or recount.
(Media types, like me, who were at the marathon Heather-Patsy ballot count party in the 2006 1st Congressional District race are still happy at not getting invites to a second-anniversary get together this year. To all those Dems, Repubs and media types with whom I bonded in that little room waiting for the results two years ago, love ya, but I’m glad I’m not breathing the same air as you right now).
Folks in Minnesota may not be so lucky, however. And any recount — Republican incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman leads SNL alum Al Franken by fewer than 600 votes out of 2.4 million cast — may hinge on ES&S machines, similar to the ones we have in N.M.
As Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Independent reports:
The recount of the Minnesota Senate race could hinge on optical ballot scanners, machines with a history of errors that were put into place by former Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer in 2006. Minnesota’s ballot scanning machines, manufactured by Election Systems & Software (ES&S), were the same machines that a Michigan election official discovered last week don’t always tabulate ballots correctly. The model that caused the problems in Michigan were the same used mainly in Minneapolis and the surrounding suburbs.
The machine: ES&S’s M100, which tabulated ballots in most every New Mexico precinct during this year’s elections.
Yep, New Mexico dodged a bullet this year. Smile.
