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Election Days

In the last update I received from the warehouse in Bernalillo County, I heard the familiar frustrations of somebody who has poured their heart out for a candidate only to be let down by a campaign.

One veteran Democratic Party volunteer I spoke with this evening expressed concern that since congress had already shifted into Democrat's control, the DNC and even members of the state Democratic Party were beginning to seem less motivated to fight it out for Patricia.

However, another veteran Democratic activist argued that if the Madrid campaign had started their election-Day Get-Out-The-Vote efforts before the leisurely 9 a.m. that they supposedly started their election-day, they might have easily gained an additional 1500 votes.

Can somebody please confirm if indeed Madrid's campaign started their election day GOTV at 9 a.m.

Regardless of the vote count tomorrow, we need a random sample audit of the machines in CD 1 to make sure the machine count matches the ballot count. Both parties have a vested interest in making sure that happens.

Technorati Tags: Bill Richardson, CD 1, Congress, Democrats, Elections, George W. Bush, Heather Wilson, lobbying, local news, New Mexico, news, Patricia Madrid, Politics

CD 1 Update

The vote counting is going slowly at the Bernalillo County Clerk's warehouse.

Vote counting rules require an equal number or representatives from each party to conduct the actual processing of the absentee and provisional ballots.

According to sources on the ground, the CD1 vote count is inching along at a snails pace in part because not enough Republicans have shown up to assist in the ballot counting.

Maybe because the GOP isn't in a rush to cede another house seat.

Wilson Ahead In Vote Count

Latest report from the belly of the beast has Wilson up 1300 votes. The implications of Madrid not succeeding are too much for my addled brain to contemplate.

All I know is that Bush already fired Rumsfeld--evidently over the objections of the Vice-President. It's hard to understand how Cheney can really advocate keeping Rumsfeld around and say that he's trying to give the President good advice.

The White House media team is making sure that it is known President Bush overruled Dick Cheney.

The President seems to have gotten the message from the nation on the war. I pray for the President that he can become the kind of President he wants us to remember him as.

ABQjournal: Wilson-Madrid Congressional Race Stays Too Close to Call:

New Mexico's nationally watched battle between 1st Congressional District Republican Rep. Heather Wilson and Democratic challenger Patricia Madrid remained razor-close early today.

Madrid had led throughout the count Tuesday night as Democrats surged to victories in House seats across the country. Wilson moved into the lead for the first time just after midnight as Torrance County precincts boosted her to a 310-vote margin out of more than 192,000 votes tallied. Wilson's lead grew to 1,171 with 99 percent of the vote counted at 1 a.m. The Bernalillo County clerk was hand-counting about 4,000 ballots from the county after midnight.

Another 2,300 absentee ballots turned in at polling places on Tuesday also were still to be counted, County Clerk Mary Herrera said.

The candidates came up about even in early and absentee voting. Madrid had the edge in early votes cast; Wilson led in absentees. Madrid's early lead in the vote tally Tuesday night was marred by controversy: Two large Albuquerque precincts ran out of ballots, some voters were turned away, and others left in anger before the supply was replenished. "They disenfranchised voters and turned them away, and that was wrong," Wilson told the Journal.

Election Day News Roundup

As Voters Pass Judgment, Many Confront Technical Bugs - New York Times
With control of Congress hanging on a handful of races, voters streamed to the polls today in a midterm election that many people have viewed as a popular referendum on President Bush and the war in Iraq, but there were a variety of voting problems scattered across the country.

Election Data Services, a Washington-based consulting firm, said the chaos of the presidential election of 2000 and the enactment two years later of the Help America Vote Act had led to the biggest shift in voting equipment in United States history, affecting perhaps 55 million voters in today’s election. And changes were most common in smaller jurisdictions, which are often short of resources to correct election-day errors.

ABQJOURNAL: Switch To Paper Ballots Gets Off To A Rocky Start
New Mexico's switch to paper ballots is off to a rocky start.
In Bernalillo County, election workers ran out of paper ballots in at least two precincts about two hours after polls opened this morning.
Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., locked in a tight race for re-election against Attorney General Patricia Madrid, blasted County Clerk Mary Herrera after a precinct in a voting site near Tramway and Paseo NE ran out of ballots by 9 a.m.
Wilson claimed only 150 ballots were delivered to the precinct, which she said she won in the last election with 67 percent of the vote.

ABQjournal: Navajo Ballot Translations Can Be Tricky
In the northwestern corner of the state, the phrase used by some Navajos to refer to the Green Party is the color of "the stuff-that-sits-on-top-of-rocks-in-a-stream planning group."
Trying to interpret certain English words into Navajo can be tricky, said Zane James, Native American election coordinator for the Secretary of State's Office.
"You sometimes beat yourself up crazy about it, trying to find a proper interpretation everyone can understand," he said.
For the first time, New Mexico is providing voters with a translation of the ballot into Navajo through what's called a "voter assist terminal." Voters can go to the polls, put on a set of headphones, and James' voice will guide them through the ballot as they mark off their choices.

More than 205,000 New Mexicans voted before Election Day
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - More than 205,000 New Mexicans have already cast their ballots, taking advantage of absentee balloting and early voting locations to get the jump on Election Day.
That's about a fifth of the state's 1 million-plus registered voters.

The state's 33 counties switched to paper ballots after the primary, replacing a patchwork of various voting machines around the state.

The new paper ballot system, in use for the first time in the general election, requires voters to mark ballots by hand, then feed them into electronic tabulating machines. The impetus behind the change was to have a verifiable paper trail.

But San Juan County Clerk Fran Hanhardt said voters in her northwestern New Mexico county weren't happy with the change.

"Most of the feedback we got from the voters was, 'Why have we taken this giant step backward?' Most of the voters, even the elderly, liked the touch screen voting machines (used previously)," she said. "I don't believe I got one favorable comment on the paper ballots at our early voting sites."

1:58 pm: AG's race was big-spending, hard-hitting
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - A big-spending, hard-hitting race for state attorney general pitted a political veteran against a newcomer whose party _ the GOP _ dug deep into its pockets.

Democrat Gary King, an ex-lawmaker, and Republican Jim Bibb, a former state and federal prosecutor, each spent more than $1 million in the runup to Tuesday's general election.

The men were vying to succeed Democratic Attorney General Patricia Madrid, who is winding up her second term and couldn't run for the office again.

King, a former congressional candidate and the son of New Mexico's longest-serving governor _ three-term Bruce King _ started with a huge name-recognition advantage. But Bibb's aggressive fundraising and campaigning narrowed King's lead in the final days.

King, 52 _ who has been a lawyer for 23 years, spent a dozen of those in the state House of Representatives, and has advised federal agencies _ told voters his broad experience is just what's required of an attorney general.

3:15 pm: Dems firm grasp on State House likely to continue
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - Democrats appeared likely to keep their firm grasp on the state House of Representatives after Tuesday's voting.

They outnumbered Republicans 42-28 going in to the general election, and that margin wasn't expected to change substantially.

Continuing Democratic domination of the Legislature _ the party controls the Senate, too _ would be a plus for Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, who plans to push an ambitious agenda again in the 2007 legislative session.

No state Senate seats are on the ballot this year.

More than half of the House's 70 members coasted to re-election, with no opposition. But 23 lawmakers had challengers. Among them:

_Republican Whip Terry Marquardt of Alamogordo, facing Democrat Nathan Cote.

_Democrat Tom Swisstack of Rio Rancho _ who first won the seat in 2002 by just three votes _ challenged by another ex-mayor of the city, Republican Jim Owen.

_Democrat Don Whitaker of Eunice, chairman of the influential House Taxation and Revenue Committee, facing Republican Shirley Tyler.

Better Safe Than Sorry: Take ID When You Vote

Better Safe Than Sorry: Take ID When You Vote

Dear Friends of Working Assets,

We're writing because improperly enforced voter ID laws across the
country are resulting in disenfranchisement of eligible voters. If you
haven't voted already, bring identification with you when you go to
the polls.

In South Carolina, the Governor had to leave and come back with proper
ID. In Missouri, the Secretary of State -- the chief election officer
-- was wrongly asked three times to produce photo identification even
though that state's photo ID requirement was recently struck down in
court.

If the politicians are having a hard time casting a ballot, imagine
what's happening to regular citizens. A bewildering array of new
regulations are in place this year -- and reports from the field
already indicate that the rules are being applied inconsistently.

Electiononline.org has created a state-by-state guide of voter ID
requirements. You may want to check your state's requirements before
you vote so you'll be aware if pollworkers at your polling place are
asking for more than is legally required, potentially turning away
eligible voters. Click here for that guide:
http://act.actforchange.com/cgi-bin7/DM/y/eqsX0PFvzW0UGh0BRhR0Ec

But just to be safe -- the best thing for you to do is to bring photo
identification with you when you go to the polls today. And if you
want to increase your impact, share this message with everyone you
know -- and make sure they take their photo ID's and get out to vote
today too.

Thank you for everything you are doing to help safeguard our
democracy.

Sincerely,

Will Easton
Manager
Working Assets

Wilson says there's not enough ballots

KOBTV.com - Wilson calls for federal election monitors after ballots run out

Incumbent Republican Congresswoman Heather Wilson is calling for federal monitors from a US House committee to keep tabs on voting in New Mexico’s 1st Congressional District.
Wilson made that announcement after a heavily Republican Northeast Heights precinct with roughly 2,500 registered voters ran out of ballots within two hours of the polls opening.
Precinct 603 was supposed to receive 1,500 ballots but only had 150 on hand when voting began at 7:00 am. When ballots ran out at about 9:00 am, voters were asked to leave their names and numbers and told they would be called when new ballots arrived.

The Voter's Log

So, how did it go? Long lines, no lines or broken machines? Rude poll workers? Intimidating challengers? Share your experience for the record.

Fill in the information below as if it were a regular spreadsheet. In order to enable this feature, please don't change anyone else's information. Just like in any spreadsheet, you can scroll over to the right and down or up. Once you've entered information, that's it, you're done. No need to save or do anything else. Also, if you provide any contact information, be sure to mark you email addresses using [at] instead of @. This is to protect you from email spam. The reason to post your contact if, would be that you saw or experienced something out of the ordinary and think election officials or advocates might need to contact your further. Even then, no obligation if you'd prefer not to.

EditGrid Spreadsheet by user/NMM.

Technorati Tags: Blogs, CD 1, Democrats, Elections, George W. Bush, GOP, Heather Wilson, local news, media, New Mexico, news, Patricia Madrid, Politics, Republicans

Report from the Absentee Ballot Precinct

This account was written by an Election Integrity Activist and forwarded to me. I'm posting it because it provides excellent insight into vote counting process and the need for patience as returns begin to be processed.

Sunday night report from Absentee Ballot Precinct.

About 4 p.m. Jan, the Presiding Judge of the Absentee Precinct, authorized the ES&S employee, who was there from 10 a.m., to start running paper ballots through the ES&S machine. They had about 6,000 ballots (of the 40,000 in hand) ready to be scanned. ES&S apparently had told her that the machine could count 300 ballots a minute, so she expected the 6,000 ballots to be counted in less than a half hour.

After more than two hours had passed, the machine had "counted" roughly 1,200 ballots, twice, each time arriving at a different number of ballots recorded, and on the second pass through kicking out several additional "over vote" ballots that it apparently had missed--and counted?--the first pass through. (Actually, what probably happened was the newly discovered over-votes had been the ballots that stopped the machine earlier but instead of removing the over-vote ballot, an un-flawed ballot, that had been counted, had been removed and placed in the "hand-tally" stack, which means it would be counted twice. This is a mechanical problem--the machine shoots ballots out into a bin, and often a ballot is shot under other ballots already in the bin--that requires a remedy.

The plan is to run those same 1200 ballots through the machine again--a third time--to see what numbers come up and to try to better understand what the machine is doing and not doing.

One of the reasons it is taking so long is that the machine stops dead when it scans a faulty ballot. The faulty ballots have been put into four categories: "blank" or "over-vote" or "write-in" or "torn/bent. The machine runs anywhere between 3 and 30 ballots before it stops, when the machine operator has to remove the faulty ballot, then re-start the machine. Happily, the second time a batch of ballots is put through the machine, minus the ones it rejected earlier, it does approach the 300/minute speed.

Technorati Tags: Bill Richardson, Blogs, CD 1, Congress, Democrats, DNC, Elections, George W. Bush, GOP, Heather Wilson, Jeff Bingaman, local news, media, New Mexico, news, Patricia Madrid, Politics, reform, Republicans

NM GOP Press Release: "Court Denies Democrat Efforts to Suppress Republican GOTV"

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT JONAH COHEN NOVEMBER 6, 2006 505-298-3662

Court Denies Democrat Efforts to Suppress Republican GOTV “If no signs of intimidation techniques have emerged yet, launch a ‘pre-emptive strike.’”-- 2004 Democrat Election Day Manual

(Albuquerque, NM) -- The New Mexico Democrat Party pulled a page out of the 2004 DNC Playbook when they attempted but failed to get a temporary restraining order to shut down the Republican phone banks in Congressional District I.

Today the judge denied their injunction and Republican Party volunteers will continue phoning voters.

The Republican Party made more than 22,000 phone calls to voters on Saturday, November 4, as part of the party’s Get Out The Vote effort.

One voter, who shared the same name as two other Republicans, complained that she received a phone call from a campaign volunteer giving her inaccurate information about her polling place.

When the voter then called the Republican Party—with the number, mind you, which she was provided originally—she was given correct information and the nominal error was ironed out.

Despite this, she contacted the Democratic Party who had their lawyers immediately file a frivolous lawsuit to shut down Sunday’s phone banks.

Due to the long lines at Early Voting locations, the Republican Party redoubled its efforts to contact voters on Saturday, November 4, after reports of lines as long as 3 hours. “County Clerk Mary Herrera failed to provide adequate and equitable Early Voting locations in Bernalillo County which resulted in long lines, 3-hour waits and some voters leaving before voting,” said Marta Kramer, executive director of the Republican Party of New Mexico. “I shudder to think of Tuesday’s train wreck.”

“Mary Herrera clearly took care of Democrat voters by placing 10 of the 12 Early Voting locations in Democrat legislative districts and gave Republican voters no choice but to stand in line for hours if they wanted to vote early,” continued Kramer.

“Ironically, as the Democrats had their lawyers in court maliciously accusing us over a handful of honest semantic errors, it turned out Richardson’s campaign was guilty of the same snafu,” added Jonah Cohen, communications director of the Republican Party of New Mexico. “A leading New Mexico journalist reported on his blog that he received a mailer from Richardson that gave him the wrong polling location and name.”

# # # #

Election News Roundup

Clovis News Journal: Serving Eastern New Mexico and West Texas:
On Tuesday, Tucumcari resident Larry Marshall will cast his vote in the general election. But behind his vote lies an eroded faith in the American political system.

“I don’t trust one politician,” Marshall, 43, said. He votes, he said, “because there is always a lesser of two evils.”

Carlsbad Current-Argus -  Current-Argus judicial endorsements :
Steve Bell is the clear choice for Fifth Judicial District, Division 10. Bell, the Democratic appointee, serves in Chaves County, but he also will try cases in Eddy and Lea counties.
Bell has an impressive background and an impeccable reputation. Before he was appointed District Judge, he spent 28 years representing cities, counties, public schools, colleges and universities. While he lacks his opponent's direct experience in criminal law, Bell's strong résumé includes the type of experience that has prepared him for the various roles a district judge must play.

Carlsbad Current-Argus -  Rebuttal: Richardson has supported, worked for Eddy County residents :
Few governors have done more for Carlsbad and Eddy County than Bill Richardson. That is why, when we read the Carlsbad Current Argus' recent editorial concerning the governor's race we were shocked and dismayed. We have never seen a piece of writing in your paper that was so misguided, misinformed and just flat wrong on the issues that are important to Carlsbad and Eddy County.

Las Cruces Sun-News - How to vote in Doña Ana County:
For instructions on how to vote in Doña Ana County, click here. This document is in PDF format.

Roswell Daily Record News: GOP holds rally to encourage more voters:
The Chaves County Republican Party held a Get Out the Vote rally Saturday to energize its Republican voter base to vote in Tuesday’s upcoming election.
The Get Out the Vote rally held at the party headquarters featured candidates Tom Dow, running for Division 10 district court judge; Division 1 Magistrate Judge Eugene M. De Los Santos; Nora Espinoza, running for state House District 59 and incumbent State Rep. Keith Gardner, District 66, spoke to the group of 100-plus campaign volunteers.

“Hello family,” Eugene M. De Los Santos told the crowd. “We are a team today, that’s why we are here. Push your candidates by knocking on doors for them. I expect Republicans to be winners on Tuesday.”

Silver City Sun-News - Republicans, Democrats make push for votes:
Democrats running for office were greeted Sunday by cheerleaders, balloons, bands and food as they traveled by train from Las Cruces to Las Vegas, encouraging New Mexicans to vote.

Politics is not just TV spots and cable and robot calls, politics is personal,'' said Gov. Bill Richardson, who's running for re-election. It's handshaking, whistle-stop tour, old-fashioned get out the vote.''

Both parties are pushing to get voters to the polls on Election Day. One thing Republicans and Democrats agree on is that voters enjoy meeting candidates face to face.

ABQjournal: Campaigns Kick Into Overdrive:
New Mexicans didn't have to look far to find political action over the weekend, as hundreds of Democrats and Republicans fanned out across Albuquerque and the rest of the state to motivate people to vote on Tuesday.
On Sunday, Gov. Bill Richardson and a roster of high-profile Democratic candidates launched a cross-state train tour that started early in the morning in Las Cruces and finished well after dark in Bernalillo.
The train journey took Democrats to seven different towns, including Albuquerque, where a couple of hundred supporters waited eagerly by the tracks at sunset.
Meanwhile, Republicans focused intently on the Albuquerque-based 1st District congressional race to help GOP incumbent Heather Wilson keep her seat in Congress.
An army of volunteers worked the phones at the Republican Victory 2006 headquarters in Albuquerque on Saturday and Sunday, while Wilson walked neighborhoods and dropped in on some "meet and greets" held in her honor at private homes.
Both political parties also hosted rallies in Albuquerque on Saturday— the Democrats in the South Valley and the Republicans on the far West Side.

ABQjournal: Voters Divided on 'Quality of Life' Tax:
Bernalillo County voters are almost evenly split on the campaign to enact a sales tax for arts and cultural programs, according to the latest Journal Poll.
The survey, conducted by Research & Polling Inc., shows 45 percent of likely voters support the tax while 42 percent say they oppose it. The other 13 percent were undecided, had mixed feelings or gave another response.

Dems ask judge to prevent GOP calls to certain voters :  Election : Albuquerque Tribune:
The Democratic Party of New Mexico is accusing Republicans of providing voters with incorrect information on polling locations in Albuquerque in an effort to cause confusion, but the GOP says the allegations are preposterous.

The Democrats allege they have learned of several instances in which voters have received phone messages providing incorrect polling information from people who identify themselves as workers at GOP headquarters.

The Democratic Party said Sunday "all voters should be warned that false information is being spread in an apparent desperate attempt to win the election through confusing and potentially illegal actions."

Alamogordo Daily News - Employees are backing commission members:
We, the Otero County Sheriff's Department Employee Association, would like to endorse Clarissa McGinn and Doug Moore in the upcoming election for the office of county commissioner.

These candidates offer both the citizens and employees of Otero County their knowledge, and with continued experience, they will ensure that everyone's best interest is protected.
Otero County Sheriff's Department Employee Association