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Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Mess o' Petitions
Click for Albloggerque's critique of the petition process in Albuquerque, whether it's to get the living wage proposal or mayoral candidates on the ballot on October 4th.
Despite Sheriff Darren White's theatrics about a few hundred forged signatures on the living wage petitions, turns out the disqualification rate is running at about 35 to 40 percent on all the petition drives.
There are questions about the criteria being used to judge the validity of signatures, and mayoral candidate Judith Espinosa has now asked a district court judge to issue an injunction in the clerk's count of signatures on her petitions. Espinosa is challenging the practice of the city clerk, Judy Chavez, in rejecting signatures, claiming only the courts have the right to disqualify a voter from a petition list. Click for the story in the Albuquerque Tribune.
Ex-Albuquerque Mayor Jim Baca examines the history and fairness of Albuquerque's petition requirements on his new blog, Only in New Mexico. Well worth a read.
August 2, 2005 at 12:25 PM in Local Politics | Permalink
Comments
In Jim Baca's essay the statement "... there are so few volunteers out there ..." caught my eye.
Why are there so few volunteers out there?
Perhaps one reason is that the Democratic Party has been driving volunteers away, discouraging people, rather than organizing and encouraging an active cadre of volunteers. I've noticed that in the 9 months since the general election I've seen fewer and fewer of the volunteers from that campaign showing up at the DPNM meetings.
Campaigns can't start a whole organization from scratch - that's what parties are for. And that's what the DPNM has utterly failed to do.
Posted by: Michael H Schneider | Aug 2, 2005 9:28:56 PM
