NMelections

Missing $2 million hangs over Vigil-Giron - SantaFeNewMexican.com

Link: Missing $2 million hangs over Vigil-Giron - SantaFeNewMexican.com.

A draft of a federal audit of the Secretary of State's Office says a Democratic consultant paid by the state to produce TV spots about the Help America Vote Act can't account for more than $2 million paid to him, and the state might be responsible for repaying some of the funds.

However, former Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron, who is running for Congress in Albuquerque, calls the release of the Election Assistance Commission draft audit a politically motivated attack on her to damage her before the June primary.

She blamed current Secretary of State Mary Herrera. A spokesman for Herrera denied it.

Vigil-Giron said some of the issues raised in the preliminary audit — which apparently was leaked to The New Mexico Independent Web site — can be explained, though she said she doesn't know why the A. Gutierrez & Associates Inc. consultant company could substantiate only $2.6 million of the $4.8 million budgeted for voter education television spots.

Funds to fix campaign finance reporting system sit idle - SantaFeNewMexican.com

Link: Funds to fix campaign finance reporting system sit idle - SantaFeNewMexican.com.

Secretary of State Mary Herrera's office hasn't used hundreds of thousands of dollars the New Mexico Legislature allocated over the past two years to fix a troublesome campaign finance reporting system.

The current electronic filing system, which dates to the 1990s, remains slow, difficult to use and doesn't allow data searches. Candidates, the public and journalists have long decried the software, which state law requires office seekers to use when filing campaign reports.

Office spokesman James Flores said the agency hopes to bank the money allocated by the Legislature and seek additional funds to eventually buy a new computer system. "We're going to be lobbying aggressively for those funds," he said of the proposed new system, which he estimated could cost between $800,000 and $1 million.

The latest round of complaints came this week, when the office announced it won't be able to post campaign reports on its Web site — including reports that candidates filed online — until May 26.

Monday was the most recent filing deadline for candidates in the June 3 primary elections.

Staffers blame the delay on the slowness of the existing system and say they need more time to scan in and post about 30 reports from candidates who asked for waivers from the online reporting requirement and filed on paper.

The state Board of Elections decided to post all candidate campaign finance information online at the same time, Flores said, to be fair to candidates.

Indiana ID law keeps nuns from voting - SantaFeNewMexican.com

Link: Indiana ID law keeps nuns from voting - SantaFeNewMexican.com.

WASHINGTON — At least 10 retired nuns in South Bend, Ind., were barred from voting in Tuesday's Indiana Democratic primary election because they lacked photo IDs required under a state law that the Supreme Court upheld last week.

John Borkowski, a South Bend lawyer volunteering as an election watchdog for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said several of the retired nuns had been voting all of their lives but were told they lacked the required identification cards and could only file provisional ballots.

Since 2005, Indiana's toughest-in-the-nation law requires every voter to produce a state or federal photo ID card. The Supreme Court, after weighing scores of legal briefs from conservatives who backed the statute and liberals who opposed it, upheld the law by a 6-3 vote, saying there was little evidence that it was unduly burdensome for voters.

Katharine Q. Seelye - On Line - The New York Times - Politics - Election 2008 - New York Times

Link: Katharine Q. Seelye - On Line - The New York Times - Politics - Election 2008 - New York Times.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- For all the bellyaching about the current presidential primary system -- it starts too early, goes on too long, is insanely expensive and gives undue influence to two small states (and you know who you are) -- it is possible that the same system will be in place for the next presidential cycle.

Advocates: Court's ID ruling may deprive some voters - SantaFeNewMexican.com

Link: Advocates: Court's ID ruling may deprive some voters - SantaFeNewMexican.com.

The Supreme Court's refusal to strike down an Indiana law requiring government-issued photo identification at the ballot box could disenfranchise minority and elderly voters at next week's primary and prompt other states to pass similar laws, voting advocates said Monday.

The court, in a splintered 6-3 ruling Monday, said Indiana's law, which took effect in 2006 and requires voters to present a state or federal photo ID card at the ballot box, does not violate the First or 14th amendments. The court said the law served as a justifiable protection to the electoral process.

County clerks unhappy with voting machine vendor - SantaFeNewMexican.com

Link: County clerks unhappy with voting machine vendor - SantaFeNewMexican.com.

Secretary of State Mary Herrera assured lawmakers Thursday that her office was prepared for the June primary election, but county clerks worry about the possible failure of memory cards in voting machines used across New Mexico.

Representatives of the state's 33 county clerks said they need extra memory cards to protect against failures during the election. The cards hold ballot information and are necessary for vote tabulators to operate.

Ballots must be hand counted — a potential source of delays in reporting the outcome of races — if tabulators aren't working.

Freedom to Tinker » Blog Archive » California review of the ES&S AutoMARK and M100

Link: Freedom to Tinker » Blog Archive » California review of the ES&S AutoMARK and M100.

ES&S Wants New Sole Source Contract with State

Voter System Firm Seeks New Contract: Secretary of state says there's no one else to provide maintenance

(Albuquerque Journal (NM) (KRT)

Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)

Feb. 27--SANTA FE -- The Nebraska firm that built New Mexico's voter registration system is seeking a no-bid contract to provide maintenance.

Nebraska-based ES&S is seeking a renewal after its original maintenance contract expired Jan. 6, a state General Services Department spokesman said this week.

"The secretary of state is trying to sole source this and they have to justify it -- that there's no one else who can operate it," said Alex Cuellar of GSD.

James Flores, spokesman for Secretary of State Mary Herrera, said his agency has "no choice" but to go with a no-bid contract. "It's their system," Flores said of ES&S. "If you buy a Volvo and something breaks down, you have to go to Volvo."

ES&S' attempt to renew the voter registration contract comes amid complaints that the state provided outdated or incomplete voter registration lists to the state Democratic Party and that they might have contributed to the party's problem-riddled presidential caucus on Feb. 5.

However, the Secretary of State's Office and ES&S say the firm played no role in the caucus problems because it does not remove or add voters' names from the lists. Responsibility for updating the lists falls to county clerks around the state.

"ES&S' role related to the New Mexico voter registration database is limited to providing centralized voter registration software, working with the state to implement the centralized system, and providing technical support in using the system," ES&S spokeswoman Jill Friedman-Wilson said Tuesday.

While some party officials have speculated the problems started with the state, other reports have suggested the problems began when the party -- which ran the caucus -- consolidated voting precincts across New Mexico.

Josh Geise, the state Democratic Party's interim executive director, declined to say where he thought the blame might lie.

Former Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron hired ES&S in 2000 to construct and maintain the state's centralized voter registration system. The recently expired agreement ran through Jan. 6, 2004, with the state able to grant four oneyear extensions, which it did.

Friedman-Wilson acknowledged that ES&S was seeking a renewal of the contract but would not discuss the terms Tuesday.

The state paid $195,000 for the software under the agreement. ES&S also charged counties varying fees for technical and software support.

The same firm outfitted New Mexico with its paper ballot voting machines and tabulators in 2006 and one of its subsidiaries maintains the secretary of state's campaign finance reporting Web site.

To see more of the Albuquerque Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.abqjournal.com.

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

AP Centerpiece: Voters, poll workers question accuracy of lists - Las Cruces Sun-News

Link: AP Centerpiece: Voters, poll workers question accuracy of lists - Las Cruces Sun-News.

ALBUQUERQUE—Weeks after New Mexico's messy Feb. 5 presidential caucus, voters and poll workers are questioning whether voter registration lists that the state provided to Democratic Party officials were outdated or incomplete. Democratic Party leaders have been criticized for their handling of the caucus, which was riddled with problems including too few ballots, long lines at polling places and an inordinately large number of provisional votes, which take longer to count.

The final tally for the election—won narrowly by Hillary Rodham Clinton—wasn't known until Feb. 14, nine days after balloting.

In interviews with The Associated Press, several voters and volunteer poll workers pinpointed problems with the voter lists at polling places—and raised the possibility that the trouble may have originated not with the party but with the voter lists Democratic organizers were provided by the Secretary of State's office and county clerks.

In Mora County, for example, where half the voters cast provisional ballots, about 1,000 Democrats were stripped of their party affiliation in the Secretary of State's databank and so were never given to the Democratic Party for the caucus list, County