More On Republican Walk-Out On Election Reform Bill Hearing

From Sonja Elison of Help America Recount and New Mexico Democratic Friends:

With only a week left in New Mexico's legislative session to clean up the election process, the Republican Party has suddenly made all election reform come to a screeching halt. New Mexico ranked second only to Ohio in the drama and questions surrounding the 2004 Presidential elections and despite a vigorous effort by Help America Recount to look into what researchers called "stunning irregularities" in the election, Governor Bill Richardson chose to pursue comprehensive election reform through the legislative process rather than the investigative process of a recount. After months of negotiating with Republicans and citizens of all parties in the state, however, the Republican Party has thrown into doubt its claims of innocence and its protests that it too wants an accurate and fair election system by in effect killing the Governor's election reform legislation by walking out of the House Voter and Elections Committee rather than allowing the Governor's omnibus election bill to pass.

The following Press release was issued by the New Mexico House of Representatives and is in no way associated with "Help America Recount" or "New Mexico Democratic Friends".

State of New Mexico House of Representatives Press Release
Paul Carbajol 949 246 3592, Alan Oliver 505 553 0759, Victoria Chavez 646 241 5335

Republicans walked away from Voter Identification and Election Reform. Today in the House Voter and Elections Committee the Republican Causcus left the Committee, ending the quorum and ending discussion of Chairman Sandoval's omnibus election reform bill 1063, carried for Governor Richardon. Republicans are not in favor of election reform. Their walkout means that New Mexico can no longer move forward on voter identification, assuring a voter verified, auditable paper trail, and qualfication of provisional ballots, said Chairman Sandoval.

"I'm very disappointed. I felt our subcommittee of Republicans and Democrats had worked together very well over the last week, finding compromises on a number of issues including voter identification and porovidsional ballot qualification," stated House Majority Leader Ken Martinez. "We made a concerted effort to work across party lines on this." Again, I think it shows that their endless drumbeating on voter id is really just noise."

"It's only the people of New Mexico who lose when their Representatives can't work together." stated Speaker Lujan.
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Editor's Note: You can easily send an emails or faxes urging your lawmakers, House/Senate leadership and committee members immediately to support two key bills, Senate Judiciary Substitute Bill for S.B.678, and H.B.1063. Click to visit the VerifiedVoting.org action page.