NMelections

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.

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workers are questioning whether voter registration lists that the state provided to Democratic Party officials were outdated or incomplete.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

Greg Palast Addresses Voter Disenfranchisement in New Mexico on KUNM - Duke City Fix

Link: Greg Palast Addresses Voter Disenfranchisement in New Mexico on KUNM - Duke City Fix .

In the wake of a disastrous Super Tuesday here in New Mexico, the Democratic party is at this moment still counting some 17,000 provisional ballots. The KUNM Call-In Show today had on investigative journalist Greg Palast to discuss why there was such a large number of disenfranchised voters, once again, in New Mexico.

I happened upon the show on my way to work and listened to caller after caller relay similar stories of disorganized polling stations with many waiting in lines for hours to find out that they were not on the voting list and that they would have to fill out provisional ballots.

Greg Palast Addresses Voter Disenfranchisement in New Mexico on KUNM - Duke City Fix

Link: Greg Palast Addresses Voter Disenfranchisement in New Mexico on KUNM - Duke City Fix .

In the wake of a disastrous Super Tuesday here in New Mexico, the Democratic party is at this moment still counting some 17,000 provisional ballots. The KUNM Call-In Show today had on investigative journalist Greg Palast to discuss why there was such a large number of disenfranchised voters, once again, in New Mexico.

I happened upon the show on my way to work and listened to caller after caller relay similar stories of disorganized polling stations with many waiting in lines for hours to find out that they were not on the voting list and that they would have to fill out provisional ballots.

Dems a mess in our state, but united - SantaFeNewMexican.com

Link: Dems a mess in our state, but united - SantaFeNewMexican.com.

What were they thinking? Or maybe the better question is, were they thinking at all? Sometimes I wonder if the Democratic Party in this state is secretly run by the Three Stooges.

Here we've had eight years of the most regressive, imperialistic, embarrassing and fiscally irresponsible national government in modern times, with Democrats champing at the bit for change. And what do we get — a caucus that runs out of ballots, waiting lines of eager voters freezing out in the cold and many voters finally giving up in frustration after three to four hours' wait without voting. What an embarrassment!

AlterNet: Blogs: PEEK: New Mexico Voter List Mystery Deepens

Link: AlterNet: Blogs: PEEK: New Mexico Voter List Mystery Deepens.

The mystery of what went wrong in New Mexico’s Super Tuesday Democratic Caucus deepened on Friday. Party officials on background said they absolutely were given a bad voter list from the Secretary of State – whose spokesman, in turn, defended the database prepared by ES&S, one of the nation’s large private election vendors.

Meanwhile, election experts watching the New Mexico debacle, where the Democratic Party underestimated voter turnout, consolidated precincts – causing confusion and long lines - and is now verifying and counting 17,000 provisional ballots, are not sure if those conditions alone, or a bad voter list, or both, was to blame for the nation’s highest rate of issuing provisional ballots in years.

Either way, the ongoing story is a cautionary tale for what not to do in November’s presidential election.

The BRAD BLOG : Privatization of New Mexico Voting Rolls May Have Played Major Role in Super Tuesday's Democratic Caucus Mess

Link: The BRAD BLOG : Privatization of New Mexico Voting Rolls May Have Played Major Role in Super Tuesday's Democratic Caucus Mess.

Contracts with Unaccountable Private Vendors Like ES&S in NM and Elsewhere, Continue Taking Costly Toll on American Democracy... On Wednesday, we covered some of the massive problems emerging from New Mexico's Democratic Party Caucus on Super Tuesday. The razor-thin margin between Obama and Clinton remains in question at this hour after ballot boxes were discovered to have been kept overnight, uncounted, at the home of a party official; voters faced long lines at the polls; and some 17,000 voters (11% versus 4% in the last caucus) were forced to vote on provisional ballots.

NPR had reported on Thursday that the state's Democratic party, which ran the election, as opposed to the state itself, had decided to do a full recount of all ballots. Tonight, though, John Gideon informs us the report was incorrect, and only "all qualified provisional ballots" are set to be counted by officials.

AlterNet: Democracy and Elections: Bad Voter Lists May Have Botched New Mexico's Democratic Caucus

Link: AlterNet: Democracy and Elections: Bad Voter Lists May Have Botched New Mexico's Democratic Caucus.

Democratic party officials in New Mexico may have used an incomplete list of registered voters on Super Tuesday -- prepared for the secretary of state by a private vendor -- causing nearly 13 percent of Democrats to find they were not on precinct voter rolls when they showed up to choose a presidential nominee.

As a result, the New Mexico Democratic Party is now in the process of validating and counting more than 17,000 provisional ballots. That count will likely determine who won the nation's closest Democratic nominating contest so far in 2008. It is unclear whether the voter list that resulted in so many provisional ballots -- or an updated list -- will be used to verify, validate and count the 17,000 votes.

With 183 out of 184 precincts reporting, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., held a lead of 1,092 votes -- 67,921 votes compared to 66,829 for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., according to the Associated Press. That tally does not include the provisional ballot count.