New Accuracy Standards For Elections Returns--SB179

This letter to the Editor appeared in yesterday's Santa Fe New Mexican from Robert Stearns and Paul Stokes, of United Voters New Mexico regarding SB 179 a bill that would establish new standards in voting accuracy for New Mexico.

Each vote counts

Thanks to the vision of the Legislature and the governor, New Mexico is now a leader among states in the trustworthiness of its voting system -- voter-marked paper ballots counted by optical scan machines. What validates voter confidence is that the paper ballots are preserved for checking machine accuracy, and for ready recounting when tallying mistakes are suspected. But to match our new paper-ballot-based voting system, the mandatory random audit of election results in the current law now needs strengthening. SB179, introduced by state Sen. Cisco McSorley (D-Albuquerque), would institute a procedure ensuring that the random selection of optical scanning machines to be audited would provide a very high statistical probability of catching any faulty machines. This issue directly affects our citizen's right to election result accuracy, both as voters and as candidates. SB179 merits all-out support. 


Robert Stearns and Paul Stokes



Santa Fe

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