The office of Secretary of State Dianna Duran says that the names of 641 dead people are still on the voter registration rolls in New Mexico.

Ken Ortiz, Duran’s chief of staff, says they still don’t know whether anyone has voted using the name of a dead person because they need to check the dates of death against the dates when the names were last used to vote.

The review of voter registration records will be part of a report to the Legislature that Duran is compiling. As part of this review, Duran also announced that 2 foreign nationals had confessed to accidentally registering to vote without knowing that it was illegal.

Duran has made pursuing voter fraud by foreign nationals a high priority, and earlier in the year announced that her office had identified at least 117 foreign nationals on the voter registration rolls, and that 37 foreign nationals had voted in the 2010 elections.

As Keesha Gaskins of the Brennan Center for Justice observed after Duran’s announcement, matching the names and birthdays of voters and lists of foreign nationals in the state is a bad way to check if illegal voting has taken place. Statistically, Gaskins points out, finding matching names and birthdays is quite likely when comparing lists with hundreds of thousands of names over long periods of time.

Finding mismatches between names and Social Security numbers on voter rolls is also a flawed method of identifying fraud, because it discounts the possibility that a Social Security number could be incorrectly entered into the system, either due to the voter’s error when filling out the form or due to an error during data entry.

At the time, Duran also claimed that there were up to 64,000 possible cases of voter fraud in the state. The ACLU of New Mexico filed a lawsuit against Duran in July after she made this claim and refused to release documentation to back it up, which the ACLU argued was a violation of the state’s public records law.

Duran said this week that her office is asking some voters to re-register due to irregularities on their form. However, she also said that she would not be purging inactive voter files this year or next year because by federal law notices must be sent in advance to the voter’s address notifying them that their file will be eliminated, something her predecessor did not do.

New Mexico’s attorney general Gary King, a democrat previously linked to pay-to-play scandals, told reporters yesterday that it was entirely legal to accept a $15,000 political contribution from the New York City law firm of Bernstein Litowitz Berger and Grossman LLP last month — despite the nine-month-old campaign contribution limits law he championed less than a year ago.

In his defense, he told reporters that because he was no longer a candidate when the check arrived on September 22 but already an elected official that it was fine to apply the funds to debts incurred during his 2010 campaign. “The easy legal solution,” he said, “is that it applies to candidates in elections 2012 and after. And I am not a candidate.”

The matter now goes to Secretary of State Dianna Duran, whose office tends to turn to the Attorney General for legal advice. King is confident that after Duran’s lawyers reflect on his interpretation of things, “they’ll agree” with him.

King’s contributions come at a particularly busy time in campaign contributions news.

Last Friday,  James Bopp Jr., an Indiana lawyer who specializes in lawsuits aimed at ending campaign finance and disclosure laws, filed, a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state’s campaign contributions limits law along with other plaintiffs from New Mexico (including state senator Rod Adair, R-Roswell, former New Mexico Republican Party chair Harvey Yates, and state representative James Conrad, R-Albuquerque).

It was also reported today that Governor Susana Martinez took in $66,000 in campaign contributions last month. She claimed her acceptance of the money “adheres to both the spirit and the letter of the law.”

King has come under scrutiny because the $15,000 contributions are well above the limit as set forth in the state’s campaign contributions limits law, which banned pledges of $5,000 or more per election cycle as of November 3 of last year (the day after he was reelected as attorney general).

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico sued Secretary of State Dianna Duran Wednesday in the Second Judicial Court of New Mexico, alleging that she violated the state’s public records law in claiming “executive privilege” by concealing documents related to her claims of voter fraud.

Duran announced that 37 foreign nationals had voted in New Mexico elections, 117 foreign nationals were registered to vote, and there were up to 64,000 cases of possible voter fraud in the 2010 elections. However, she did not offer evidence to back up these claims. ACLU-NM, Heath Haussamen of NMpolitics.net, and several others filed public records requests for the documents.

“These sorts of hit-and-run allegations are reckless and irresponsible,” said ACLU-NM Executive Director Peter Simonson. “Without offering any proof, the Secretary of State has undermined the public’s confidence in our elections system while hiding the evidence for her claims behind the cloak of executive privilege.”

Secretary of State Dianna Duran

This is not the first time that Duran has been criticized for her lack of openness from those looking for information on this same investigation. The American Civil Liberties Union chapter in New Mexico and the Santa Fe New Mexican outlined their troubles with receiving the documents earlier this month.

Last week, Milan Simonich of the Texas-New Mexico News papers Partnership, which runs several newspapers in southern New Mexico and Texas, reported that the investigation was “covered in secrecy.”

In a commentary piece, Haussamen wrote that his attempts to receive information on the 37 alleged illegal voters reminded him of “dealing with Richardson all over again.” Former Gov. Bill Richardson used executive privilege to reject open records records using the Inspection of Public Records Act, or IPRA, by journalists and others.

Haussamen writes that after filing data requests he received different records than the ACLU-NM did when it requested similar information.

The e-mails are so heavily redacted that they’re mostly useless, but there’s one interesting letter in that batch of documents – a letter from Duran to the AG’s office asking for advice on what the office could release in response to records requests from me and others.In fact, it’s the very letter I asked Duran to release when I had her on the phone – the letter she told me she could not release.

Why the redactions in the documents provided to the ACLU? Executive privilege, Sanchez told me.

“Revelation of the information within these emails will compromise the Secretary of State’s decision-making process, and thus outweighs the public’s interest in disclosure,” Sanchez wrote.

That sounds familiar. During the years Bill Richardson was governor, executive privilege was known as the way to keep documents secret when there was no other way to legally do it.

Duran made the claim of illegal voters during a committee hearing in this year’s legislative session, which ended a month ago.

At least one media outlet and the New Mexico chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said in recent days that they are having a hard time getting documents from the Secretary of State’s office about alleged illegal votes in New Mexico.

Secretary of State Dianna Duran made the allegation that 117 foreign nationals were registered to vote and that, of those, 37 voted illegally during the last election. The Santa Fe New Mexican and ACLU-NM both submitted record requests under the Inspection for Public Records Act for the information.

ACLU-NM director Peter Simonson told Clearly New Mexico, a project of the non-profit the Center for Civic Policy, that ACLU-NM received information that was so heavily redacted it was essentially useless.

“The Secretary of State said she redacted the information we requested based on two issues: one, executive privilege; and two, driver privacy protection laws,” Simonson said.

Meanwhile, the Santa Fe New Mexican did not receive anything from the Secretary of State’s office.

The day after that meeting, I submitted a request to Duran’s office under the state Inspection of Public Records Act for copies of the 117 voter registrations, plus any records she had that indicated 37 of those people had voted.

After the 15-day response deadline allowed under the law, I was notified last week that my request was denied.

Citing state and federal privacy laws relating to MVD records, Secretary of State’s Office records custodian Christiana Sanchez wrote, “Based upon advisement of our legal counsel, the records are prohibited from release.”

Media outlets and the ACLU-NM will likely continue to attempt to get the information from the office of the Secretary of State and they may be aided by a Supreme Court decision.

Again from the Clearly New Mexico blog:

Simonson said it was interesting that Duran would use “executive privilege” as an defense, because that is the same defense Bill Richardson used a few years ago when the Republican Party of New Mexico sued to get exactly the same records from his administration.

In fact, that case is currently pending before the New Mexico Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments on it just a few weeks ago, Simonson said.

“We may want to see the outcome of that ruling, because it will directly affect what they are allowed to claim under the Open Records Act. We will also be looking into what the state’s driver protection laws say, and how executive privilege has been determined. At this point, we’re still trying to look at how to respond.”

The claim by Duran came during the legislative session where she was calling for requiring voter identification to vote. Duran has said that requiring identification to vote is one of her top priorities as Secretary of State.

Secretary of State Dianna Duran

Secretary of State Dianna Duran placed the staffer responsible for what a liberal-leaning PAC described as “racist jokes” on a disclosure form on leave.

“I was shocked and disappointed to learn that a state employee apparently posted what can be interpreted as racially offensive language in a sample finance report,” Duran said in the release. “I find these actions deeply offensive and I immediately ordered the materials removed and I initiated an investigation.”

Duran also said, “I will not tolerate any form of racism or bigotry in this office.”

A sample spreadsheet for political action committee’s disclosure featured a combination of the names of two African American legislators as the last name and “JeffersonDavis” as the first name.

The Justice League PAC found the reference and called for Duran’s resignation.

Jefferson Davis was the president of the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Rep. Sheryl Williams Stapleton, D-Albuquerque and Rep. Jane Powdrell-Culbert, R-Corrales, were the legislators whose names were put together in the sample.

A PAC that supported Diane Denish in the 2010 gubernatorial election is accusing Secretary of State Dianna Duran of “racist jokes” and is calling for her resignation.

The alleged racist joke comes in a disclosure form released by her office. The form uses “Sheryl Powdrell-Culbertson” as the last name of an example, combining the names of Sheryl Williams Stapleton and Jane Powdrell-Culbertson, two African American members of the state legislator. The first name is listed as “JeffersonDavis.” Jefferson Davis was the President of the Confederacy during the Civil War.

“I was shocked when I downloaded Secretary Duran’s spreadsheet this morning to find such racist comments on a State document. Secretary Duran should be ashamed of herself,” Justice League PAC Treasurer Eli Il Young said in a statement. “We expect more from elected officials. There is no place for racism in New Mexico, much less in a state office. She should resign immediately.”

The disclosure form is downloadable from the website of the Secretary of State under “2011 PAC Filing Form for April 11, 2011 Report.”

Update: Sec. of State places staffer on leave after racist joke

The offices of the Secretary of State and Attorney General will look into whether Gov. Susana Martinez misused campaign funds for paying for radio ads pushing for the repeal of the law that allows illegal immigrants to get drivers licenses.

Secretary of State Dianna Duran has said that she does not believe Martinez did anything wrong. Duran is the first Republican Secretary of State in New Mexico in decades.

“KSFR News and several advocacy groups asked for a formal ruling whether pre-election campaign funds can be used to influence legislation after the elections,” KSFR reported.

“We do believe that the money that was spent on the radio ads, that it does constitute an allowable expense under the Campaign Reporting Act,” Duran told KSFR in a radio interview.

A spokesman for the office of the Attorney General told the AP yesterday that his office is looking into the legal question.

This week, the good government group Common Cause New Mexico and the immigrant rights’ group Somos un Pueblo Unido called for the investigation, and public radio station KSFR asked Attorney General Gary King to look into the question if unspent campaign funds for a political can be spent on lobbying for legislation.

The tactics Gov. Susana Martinez used to push for revoking drivers licenses for illegal immigrants, including the use of campaign funds on radio ads, is raising eyebrows — and calls for an investigation. Common Cause New Mexico is asking the Attorney General to look into whether this use of funds breaks New Mexico state election law.

“The Campaign Reporting Act places strict limitations on how campaign funds can be used,” said Steven Robert Allen, executive director of CCNM, in a statement Wednesday. “Funding this kind of lobbying advertisement seems to be a clear violation of this statute.”

The immigrants-rights group Somos un Pueblo Unido has also called for an investigation as well.

Martinez defended the use of the funds today, telling KUNM, “I don’t have anything to worry about in the sense of they were campaign funds.”

“Tax dollars were not spent in any way for any of that. And in fact the Secretary of State has said it was completely appropriate,” Martinez continued.

Martinez has also sent staffers with video cameras to committee rooms for her legislative priorities, which some legislators said amounted to an attempt to intimidate them. This led the Senate to say that committee chairs have the ability to ban video cameras from committee hearings.

A bill that would require voters to show identification at polling sites for elections was held over for another day in the House Voters and Elections Committee on Tuesday. The bill, which is supported by Gov. Susana Martinez and Secretary of State Dianna Duran, was the focus of passionate debate in the committee. A vote on the bill is expected by the committee on Thursday.

The bill, sponsored by Dianne Hamilton, R-Silver City, will likely be replaced with a committee substitute, according to the KUNM Government Project.

“We need to have voter ID implemented before going into 2012 elections in order to assure that every person who appears at that polling place is the person they say they are,” Duran said, according to the Daily Lobo.

Republicans have long said there is widespread voter fraud. Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias looked into voter fraud allegations but said that he could not find any evidence that would have been enough to get a conviction in court.

Some states have been wary of instituting new voter ID laws because of the cost. The Taxation and Revenue Service did not respond to the Legislative Finance Committee for the fiscal impact report, but the fiscal impact report says, “In Missouri and Wisconsin similar legislative voter identification initiatives have been proposed and accompanying fiscal impact analysis indicate significant associated costs.”

The Attorney General’s office said, according to the fiscal impact report, that the bill would face a number of potential legal challenges. One is that there’s no ID requirement for those using absentee ballots. Another is that the bill does not require IDs with photos on tribal lands because tribal identifications do not have photos.

The Attorney General’s office says the bill also twice conflicts with the federal Help America Vote Act.

First, HAVA requires all voters who offer to vote in the county in which they believe they are registered to receive a ballot. This bill creates an automatic interposition of an election challenge, without amending the challenge statute to provide for resolution through a provisional ballot. Second, the registration requirement in HB 308 for first time registrants in the state who register by mail violates the standards in HAVA.

The Associated Press reported, “Although the county clerks opposed Hamilton’s bill, they are divided on whether voter identification should be required.”