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Saturday, February 19, 2005
Update: Election Reform Day at the Legislature
From United Voters of New Mexico:
United Voters of New Mexico is sponsoring Election Reform Day at the 2005 New Mexico State Legislative Session.
8 AM - 10 AM: Be the lobbyist! Information packets will be available for you to share with your state legislators.
10 AM – 10:30 Voters lawsuit plaintiff’s press conference: Come hear first hand stories and a legal update from the voters who filed a lawsuit to obtain a permanent injunction on the paperless, electronic voting machines that caused so many problems in the 2004 General Election
11:00 – 12:00 Verified Voting New Mexico will hold a press conference to address election reform bills
12:00 – 1:00 PM Rally: VVPB Now! (Voter Verifiable Paper Ballots)
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Editor's Note: Let's turn out in large numbers for this event to show how serious the voter's of New Mexico are about election reform! And visit the link to the United Voters of New Mexico website above. Excellent information and recommended actions.
February 19, 2005 at 12:23 PM in Events, Local Politics | Permalink
Comments
We watched "In Focus" on KNME last night which gave us a pretty good idea of the precarious state of election reform in the legislature right now.
The moderator, Kate Nelson, had Sonja Elison of NM Democratic Friends (who helped draft Senate Bill 1065, our citizens' election reform bill), Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera, Eli Lee of the Governor's office and Representative Justine Fox-Young (R) as her guests.
Nelson devoted the first fifteen minutes of the program to the voter ID issue (which Elison correctly identified as a red herring). Fox-Young has been a major advocate for legislation on this issue and the governor has also included his recommendations for it in his election reform proposal.
Elison did a terrific job when she was asked about her (our) position but her points were either ignored or overshadowed by the carefully crafted answers of the other people there.
For example:
Elison: There were 21,000 undervotes.
Herrera: A lot of people told me that they went to the polls and just voted for me and left.
Elison: We need voting machines with voter-verifiable paper ballots.
Lee: It will be very costly to get those machines.
Elison's comments about the Native American and Hispanic vote statistics were questioned and then ignored.
Nelson asked Lee about passing election reform legislation this session and also about the proposed task force that will be set up after the session to study election reform (recommended by House Speaker Ben Lujan).
Lee replied that the task force would be set up (read: we're going to let this election reform issue die in this toothless committee) but he wasn't sure if any election reform legislation would be passed this session.
RED FLAG HERE!!!
We HAVE to get the voter-verifiable paper ballots (VVPBs) legislation passed this session so that all voting machines that will be used in the 2006 elections will have VVPBs.
Now is the time to act!
Come to SF on Wednesday!
If it isn't possible for you to be there send emails to the governor and to your state senator and representative.
It is crucial that this legislation be passed in order for us to protect our vote.
Posted by: Andrea and David | Feb 19, 2005 1:40:36 PM
Excellent summary of the show. I wished Fox-Young would have taken a breath with her babbling about voter ID so that other people could talk. She's a first-year Rep. yet it seemed obvious she thought she knew everything there is to know about election reform.
And we were rolling on the floor when we heard Mary Herrera claim that so many voters came out to vote just for her. I wonder what universe she is from. I can only imagine how many people came out to vote only for the county clerk in a presidential election. She seemed entirely unconcerned that numerous serious problems were found with the vote tallies. La dee da.
I thought Sonja did super considering how much time was given to the red herring. Wake up media and Dem officials -- voter ID is NOT a make or break issue this time around. Thousands of uncounted and phantom votes are THE issue.
Posted by: barb | Feb 19, 2005 4:52:42 PM
I think that this dialouge that DFNM is helping to facilitate is wonderful but I feel that mocking those who do not share your zealous pursuit of Democracy for New Mexico misses the point of executing meaningful reform that stregthens accountabilty in voter systems.
Voter Reform is an issue that not many citizens are paying attention to. With so many issues out there it's hard to keep up with them all. Especially one as so nuanced as election reform. It means something diffrent to each person.
For example not everyone understands what an under vote is or an over vote. It's like fractions, remember those? Explain to the average person what 1/16th is? Now explain what an overvote is. Better yet what is a phantom vote? Why does it affect Marisol Hernandez in Columbus or Steve Smith in Framington, NM? Why is it important for them to visit the capitol and urge their elected represetatives to support paper trial voting?
Ms. Ellison was indeed corect in stating that the issue of voter id is a red herring. The problem is that Voter ID has been framed as the be all end all of voter reform.
What was Ms. Ellison's frame? Paper trail. That was it. Did it ellicit any follow up from the fair minded Kate Nelson? Hardly. Now who's fault is that? Where was her "carefuly crafted answer"?
Before Friday, besides Ms. Young, what Democrat state rep. or senator was championing an alternative to Ms. Young's proposal? No one and that was clear on the show because she was the only legislative member on the show.
By the way Andrea and David, making fun of a longtime public servent like Mary Herrera is in poor taste. She was realting an anecdote from her personal experience.
Her story was no diffrent than the the anecdotes of members of DFNM relate before house and senate hearings at the Roundhouse.
After all Ms. Herrera did aggree that voter id poses more problems for clerks than it does solutions and this helps DFNM's possistion.
Besides I'd rather have an election administrator as a friend rather than an adversary when seeking to stregthen voting systems and thus stregthing democracy in New Mexico.
Posted by: Thinking Critically | Feb 20, 2005 1:37:21 PM
You are incorrect that no Dems have been introducing and supporting election reform bills. As an example, Sen. Ortiz y Pino introduced a very comprehensive bill early in the session. It was one of the bills being heard at the Senate Rules Committee that our members and those of NM Democratic Friends have been following and testifying about, and that has been covered here. In addition, the work of Sonja Elison and others resulted in the election reform bill introduced last week by Sen. Cisco McSorley.
Contrary to your statement, I believe a large number of New Mexicans are very interested in election reform as the result of the many instances of voting problems and probable fraud that have come to light in the 2000 and 2004 elections. That's why so many groups and individuals have focused on this problem in terms of this year's NM Legislative Sesssion.
As to the definitions of undervotes, overvotes and phantom votes, a number of groups have produced reports, given press conferences and distributed detailed information about these as they were documented in NM. Unfortunately, the mainstream media has determined this story has no entertainment value so very little coverage has been devoted to it. Instead they have concentrated on the Republican's pretty much undocumented trumpeting about voter ID.
If you'd like to learn about these issues I suggest you click on the links on the right-hand sidebar on this page under the title NM Election Reports. These reports examine the undervote, overvote and phantom vote issues and provide excellent documentation.
For me, I was very disappointed in Mary Herrera's answer about undervotes. With all the documentation of serious problems in our election, it seemed to me she was giving a very frivolous example and expressed no real concern about the problems that have been documented.
Thanks for your comments. Discussion and debate is almost always a positive thing.
Posted by: barb | Feb 21, 2005 10:23:02 AM
