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.
Barring some sort of legal challenge, Democrat Steve Fischmann has unseated Senate Minority Whip Leonard Lee Rawson, R-Las Cruces.
With only eight provisional ballots from Sierra County left to be considered, Fischmann leads Rawson by 544 votes. Fischmann has 13,131 votes, or 51.1 percent of the vote, to Rawson’s 12,587 votes, or 48.9 percent. The new tally, which includes Doña Ana County’s provisional ballots, was first reported by the Las Cruces Sun-News.
The Doña Ana County Board of Commissioners is set to meet Wednesday to certify the county’s election results. The outcomes of no races changed as a result of the provisional ballots that were considered over the weekend. Before the provisionals were counted, Fischmann led Rawson by 505 votes.
Before the election, Rawson raised concerns about what he characterized as potential voter fraud, naming 32 people he said he believes have been registered multiple times to vote. And there’s still the issue of how many people in the Senate district requested absentee ballots but ended up not voting.
The county didn’t comply during the election cycle with a law requiring that absentee ballots be mailed out within 24 hours of the office receiving requests for the ballots and, as of Tuesday morning, 3,844 people who had requested absentee ballots had not yet voted. Doña Ana County plans to have a final tally of the number of people who requested absentee ballots but weren’t able to or didn’t vote in the election by Wednesday.
Rawson has given no indication of whether he plans any sort of legal action. He hasn’t responded to phone and e-mail requests for comment, and he has also not commented to any other media organization about the situation.
