Election Reform Activists Urge Media Coverage of Vigil-Giron's Coming Purchase of New Voting Machines

Media Alert from Verified Voters NM:
NM Secretary of State(SOS) Rebecca Vigil-Giron appears ready to spend millions in taxpayer money on voting machines for the disabled but has ruled out the one machine the disabled are said to like best. Moreover, she is doing this out of the public view.

Her action, she says, is to comply with the requirement of the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) that at least one voting system accessible and usable independently and privately by the disabled must be purchased for each polling place by December 31. The Secretary seems poised to use an estimated $9 million in HAVA funds for buying some 1,400 electronic voting machines.

During Sept. 19-23, Secretary Vigil-Giron held an unpublicized meeting in Rio Rancho, to which she invited representatives of the disabled as well as county clerks from throughout the state. She has not revealed who these disabled representatives were and how comprehensively they reflected the range of disability. At this meeting she barred the county clerks from providing input and asked the disabled representatives to rate three touch screen machines – the Sequoia AVC Edge and the ES&S iVotronic and the ES&S AutoMark. According to testimony on 10/13 before the legislative task force on election reform, nine out of ten of the participating disabled voters at the Rio Rancho meeting preferred the AutoMark. But inexplicably the SoS told them that the AutoMark is not eligible for selection on grounds that it is not HAVA compliant -- this despite the fact that the other two machines being rated are also not HAVA compliant at this time.

Election reform activists with Verified Voting NM and United Voters NM say the SoS is arbitrary and wrong to willfully bypass the AutoMark.

The AutoMark utilizes a ballot marker that enables the disabled to vote without assistance and in private. It has a sip/puff tube for voters unable to use a touch screen and an audio function for blind voters. It is equally efficient for non-disabled voters. Also, the AutoMark does not count votes as other voting machines do. Instead, to insure counting accuracy, it utilizes a conventional paper ballot that can be readily audited or recounted by hand or by the electronic scanning machines already available in many NM counties. By contrast, the Edge and iVotronic use rolls of paper tape for verifiable paper ballots that are much more difficult to audit and recount.

North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming have all selected the AutoMark as their voting machine of choice, as well as counties in California, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Florida.   

This impending purchase by the Secretary of State is of major importance to voters in NM since these voting machines are used by both the disabled and non-disabled. Selection of voting machines should be carried out with full public input and with all alternatives openly considered.

On behalf of many election reform supporters in NM, we urge the media, in your key role as watchdogs of democracy, to look into this issue and report your findings. (signed)  Robert Stearns 988-3718; Kim Kirkpatrick 454-0598; Stephen Fettig 662-6785, Pat Leahan 425-3840; Paul and Laura Stokes 898-1237, all citizen volunteers with Verified Voting NM or United Voters NM. Note: We have no financial connection with any voting machine manufacturer or vendor, nor does VVNM and UVNM.    

More info on Verfied Voting New Mexico: https://vvnm.org

Editor's Note: If you'd like to contact media in your area about this issue, here's a site that makes it easy.

Contact information for NM Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron:

Office of the New Mexico Secretary of State
State Capitol North Annex, Suite 300
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87503
Phone: (505) 827-3600 
FAX: (505) 827-3634
Toll Free 1-800-477-3632
Email: secstate@state.nm.us

Click for contact Information for NM County Clerks: