Secretary of State Mary Herrera

The longstanding battle over who owns the state’s more than 1,900 voting tabulators – the counties or the state – appears settled, and none too soon with this year’s elections fast approaching. A bill Gov. Bill Richardson signed into law in recent days renders the fight moot, state and local officials say, by requiring the state to [...]

Secretary of State Mary Herrera is sounding the alarm as loud as she can at the Roundhouse: there isn’t enough money for 2010 primary or general election.

An Albuquerque company found security lapses at the problem-plagued Secretary of State’s computer system, reports the Albuquerque Journal.

A spokesman for New Mexico Secretary of State Mary Herrera reiterated Wednesday that the agency is continuing to work on “producing or procuring a new campaign finance reporting system.”

New Mexico Secretary of State Mary Herrera is calling on the Legislature to pony up more money to pay for a first-rate campaign finance reporting system.
In a letter sent July 27 to a prominent state lawmaker, Herrera says the $176,500 the Legislature has appropriated to her office in the past for a new campaign finance reporting [...]

A federal court on Monday ruled that the state of New Mexico had violated two nonprofits’ rights to free speech last year by attempting to force them to disclose the origin of the money that had paid for mailers that were critical of state lawmakers.

A federal court judge ruled today that the state of New Mexico was in the wrong for trying to require two nonprofit organizations to register as political committees after they sent mailings to constituents in 2008 that were critical of several state lawmakers.

Last month’s paralyzing shutdown of the Secretary of State’s computer systems and web site has state lawmakers asking how to make New Mexico’s constitutional offices subject to the same IT rules most other state agencies comply with. But the state’s IT chief, Marlin Mackey — who has authority over how most state agencies manage information technology — doesn’t have such control over the state’s constitutional offices, Mackey said.

The New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office (SOS) decided to build its own new campaign finance reporting database rather than spend upwards of $800,000 to buy an “off-the-shelf” product, Deputy Secretary of State Don Francisco Trujillo II said Friday.

This just in from KUNM FM 89.9: “This week on the KUNM call-in show Arcie Chapa continues our look at the 2009 Legislative Session with coverage of a bill that seeks to define what nonprofits can and can’t do during an election year. If passed, the Election Communication Contribution Reporting bill will require nonprofits to [...]

New Mexico Secretary of State Mary Herrera just announced that by Thursday the department had registered more than 500 lobbyists and 600 lobbyist organizations for the 2009 Legislative session.
And it expects that more than 1,000 lobbyists will be registered by the conclusion of the session.
Let’s see. If there are 112 lawmakers and 1,000 lobbyists, that [...]

Bill Richardson, the self-proclaimed go-to guy in New Mexico’s hour of need, has been traveling the world in service to Barack Obama but he’s done little to ensure that New Mexico will have a smooth election. Will the Land of Enchantment be the Florida of 2008?