Democracy for New Mexico

Recount: ACTION ALERT

TODAY
State Canvassing Board Meets
5PM * Governors Conference Room
State Capitol

We will be asking the State Canvassing Board to approve our request for a recount of the 10% priority precincts in the state.

The Attorney General and Secretary of State yesterday put out a memo to county clerks that they could begin clearing the voting machines.

We are filing a Temporary Restraining Order to prevent the machines from being cleared.

Call your County Clerk and urge them to maintain the integrity of the machines for the recount.

Your attendance at this important meeting is critical !!!

Mitch Buszek
NM State Coordinator
Help America Recount

Zephyr Teachout: Wings on the Donkey

Old Deaners will no doubt remember the infamous Zephyr Teachout, who made the DFA blog a fun place back in the primary days as his Internet Outreach Director. And what a name! She also visited DFA folks here in Albuquerque during her cross-country trip to meet the roots, starting out in a very used Airstream trailer that experienced so many mechanical problems she finally had to abandon it mid-stream (no pun intended).

After Dean lost in the primaries, she went on to ply her trade at America Coming Together. Today, she's back at school and endorsing Dean for DNC Chair. Excerpts:

This moment in the history of our country is so much bigger than unanswerable speculation about who will hire the best ad company. Its our first act, collectively, as democrats to say what we believe in after last November's election.

We must choose a person that represents our strongly held, unambiguous beliefs about the rights and responsibilities of American citizens. We must elect someone who we can all look to articulate some of our hopes at a time we can feel strangled.
[. . .]
We use political parties to aggregate our hopes and dreams. The point of the Democratic party is not to win for its own sake, but to win because we represent some of the best traditions of civic life in human history. One of my hopes is to always be courageous in political life.  As a party, we need courage at the core - and the ability to inspire it in others. Just today I got an email from someone whose uncle decided to run for a rural texas local board spot because he got the email from Dean today.

Dean speaks in a blunt, straight way - he's funny, and he has a remarkable ability to listen, directly, to the people speaking to him. He's absolutely clearheaded about the fact that no political act has no cost. Every funding decision we make means there's another we can't - every choice is tied to every other choice. He's also very clearheaded about the difference between being a leader and demanding absolute fealty. He's happy to welcome right to lifers into the party, but that doesn't mean he's about to tone down his own strong views on family planning and a woman's freedom.
[. . .]
Lets get some wings on that donkey.

Open Letter from Rep. John Conyers

On January 10th, Rep. John Conyers, who has been pivotal in the effort to research and document the Ohio election horrors, released this open letter to those who have fought hard to support his efforts and those of so many others. Can we thank this man enough? And guess what? He supports Howard Dean for DNC Chair and wrote this letter of endorsement, as well as his open letter here:

Dear Friend:

I want to thank you for the time and energy you have already given to help me in my pursuit of the truth about the 2004 Presidential election, particularly the truth about what happened in Ohio. I also want to let you know what I will be working on in the coming months.

I believe what we achieved on January 6 will be a seminal event in the history of progressive politics, and significantly advance the cause of electoral reform.  For this challenge to Ohio’s electors to have occurred, I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the internet activists, who spread the story of my efforts and supported me in every way possible. I am also thankful to the alternative media, including talk radio and blogs that gave substantial attention and investigation to these matters when all but a handful in the mainstream media refused to examine the facts. I cannot thank all of you personally, but you know who you are.

With the exigency of January 6 behind us, I wanted to let you know what I will be doing in the coming months. First, my investigation of Ohio voting irregularities is not over. In an effort to get as much information confirmed and circulated in advance of January 6, many valuable leads still need to be pursued and I pledge to do so. Substantial irregularities have come to light in other states during the course of this investigation and I will also pursue those leads. While there has been powerful opposition to my efforts and personal attacks against me as a result of my efforts, I want to assure you I remain steadfast.

Second, there are other matters involving wrongdoing by Administration officials that I will continue to pursue. Among other things, I will continue to seek answers about the role of senior Bush Administration officials in outing an undercover Central Intelligence Agency operative. I will also continue to examine the sources of the fraudulent case for the Iraq war, which intersects with the outing of this operative.

Third, I intend to develop and introduce legislation in a number of areas. Most importantly, I intend to introduce comprehensive election reform legislation in the coming weeks, and I will fight for its passage at the earliest possible moment. I intend to hold further hearings on this issue. I will also continue to fight the job loss and the loss of retirement security that has so negatively impacted working families in my district, and I will fight the economic policies of this Administration that are the cause of these serious problems. Finally, the Judiciary Committee will also be at the center of the efforts to oversee the U.S.A. Patriot Act and ascertain which, if any, provisions should be renewed. I expect to lead the fight against a number of provisions that I believe compromise our civil liberties.

Again, thank you for all you have done. I look forward to working with you on these and other important matters in the weeks and months ahead.

Sincerely,
John Conyers, Jr.

Dean's Officially Running for DNC Chair

Read all about it:

Dr. Dean has been quoted as saying he wouldn't officially enter this contest unless he had talked to every voting member of the Democratic Party and had determined he had a good chance to win. So we know what this means!

What's your reaction to this news?

UPDATE: There's Dean for DNC Chair gear for sale at CafePress already, or you can download and print your own bumperstickers and signs. If you prefer, there are always the old faithful I'm a Dean Democrat items.

Dean to Announce Formal Entry Into Race for DNC Chair?

That's 1:00 PM Eastern, or 11:00 AM Mountain.

Click

Startling Report on NM Election Points to Widespread Problems and Irregularities

Did you know that 1 out of 20 votes for President in New Mexico was "lost"?

Did you know that 1 out of 11 votes of Hispanic citizens in Bernalillo county was "lost"?

Did you know that 1 out of 12 Native American votes for President was lost in New Mexico?

Did you know that research shows that the different voting machine types used in New Mexico precincts are correlated with different kinds of voting errors and that New Mexico is planning on spending tens of thousands of dollars to buy new machines before 2006?

All this and more is included in the detailed and well-documented "A Summary Report on New Mexico State Election Data," prepared by Ellen Theisen and Warren Steward for www.HelpAmericaRecount.org. The report, dated 1/4/05, was released last week at press conferences in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, along with a brief summary of its findings. Click for a pdf file of this amazing and disturbing 12-page report.

According to the brief summary report

Analysis of the official New Mexico State election data reveals a pattern of stunning errors and severe irregularities in the election data. Until the paper ballots are examined and the electronic voting data verified, the canvass report certified by the State of New Mexico cannot be regarded as an accurate reflection of the will of the people.

Other findings include:

Excessively high numbers of undervotes (ballots with no vote recorded for president) suggest that thousands of votes may not have been counted. For example, none of Dona Ana County's 207 overseas absentee ballots reported a presidential vote.

Although only 41% of the state's voters cast their ballots on push-button electronic voting machines (Shouptronic and Advantage), these machines accounted for 77% of the presidential undervotes, raising doubts about their accuracy.

Although NM Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron has stated that the auditor they hired to review the election results found nothing amiss, the auditor's letter says they found 233 errors in the data provided for absentee precincts and that the data compiled by Dona Ana County contained 222 errors. Click for a copy of the Audit letter from Robert J. Rivera, CPA.

The Green and LIbertarian presidential candidates have filed with the Appeals Court in NM to allow their requested recount to proceed. No action has yet been taken by the court and there has been no word on when they will consider hearing the case.

Thanks to Sonja Elison for information used in this report, which was presented at the DFA-DFNM Meetup on January 5th. Her organization, New Mexico Democratic Friends, will be spearheading an effort to push for real election reform at the upcoming NM Legislative Session. DFNM will be working with them on this, so keep on eye out on this blog for more information on this effort.

Sunday Bird Blogging

In the blogosphere tradition of Friday Cat Blogging, here at DFNM we've instituted Sunday Bird Blogging. We ARE the Land of Enchantment, so we couldn't just adopt the blog tradition without putting our own spin on it. So we have Sunday Bird Blogging, which last week introduced Bosco the peach-faced lovebird. Here he is again in one of his favorite spots, atop my rapidly greying, uncombed morning hair. I guess he likes chaos and unkempt, rebellious things as much as any progressive Democrat. (Click on photo for larger image.)

If you'd like a picture of your bird (or fish or reptile or hamster or, yes, even your cat or dog) to appear on this blog on an upcoming Sunday, email me a photo. And write a few sentences to tell us about your pet. Not only will your pet gain political notoriety nationwide and across the Atlantic, but you'll help me fill a blogspot on Sundays, when I'd much rather be relaxing than focusing on politics. Gracias.

Helpful One-Stop Progressive Site

The American Prospect has an excellent side project and website called Moving Ideas: The Electronic Policy Network, Connecting You to the Progressive Community. Click on the link above to explore this one-stop progressive policy and action center that has input from numerous think tanks and progressive activist organizations. You can also sign up for email updates and action alerts. A great resource for anyone interested in progressive policy, news and activism.

Fact of the Day: Iraq War U.S. Wounded Have Tripled

According to Thomas F. Schaller at The Gadflyer:

"... here is a statistic that should startle people: The rate at which Americans have been wounded has more than tripled since April 1, 2004: from about 8 per day before the insurgency began to gain its Fallujah foothold, to more than 27 per day since. (Data, as always, courtesy of Lunaville.org.)

Spin these numbers, Karl:

• 3,063 woundings in the 378 days from March 19, 2003, through March 31, 2004 = 8.1/day

• 6,650 woundings in the 244 days from April 1 through November 30, 2004 = 27.3/day

That's right – tripled!"

Of course I've read that Bush has ordered his aids not to give him ANY bad news about Iraq, so he probably has no real idea this is happening -- and doesn't care to know. Must be real relaxing living in that positive news bubble of his. What, me worry?

Important Meetings on Precinct Building

As announced at this weeks' DFA-DFNM Albuquerque Meetup, Terri Holland, Director of Party Affairs at the Democratic Party of New Mexico, will be hosting a planning meeting on Thursday, January 13th from 4:30 to 6:00 PM at the DPNM Office at 1301 San Pedro NE. We'll be brainstorming and developing plans to strengthen the Party's precinct structure and get more people involved. UPDATE: PLEASE ATTEND THIS MEETING ONLY IF YOU ARE SPECIFICALLY INTERESTED IN PLANNING THE 2/5 EVENT. OTHERWISE, PLEASE ATTEND THE GENERAL PRECINCT BUILDING MEETING DESCRIBED BELOW.

This planning will culminate in a precinct organizing event on Saturday, February 5th at 11:00 AM at the IBEW Hall at 4921 Alexander Blvd. NE FOR EVERYONE INTERESTED IN PRECINCT BUILDING. This will feature practical information on organizing to walk/call precincts to broaden the Democratic Party base and team building by ward.

Ward and precinct elections will be held sometime between March 3rd and March 17th of this year, so now is the time to get involved. DFNM is encouraging as many members as possible to become precinct and ward chairs, as well as to fill other Party slots, so please consider coming to the planning meeting next Thursday.