ACTION ALERT REMINDER: Election Reform Task Force This Wednesday

An important meeting of the Legislative Election Reform Task Force will be held Wednesday, December 14, at 9:00 AM, in Room 322 of the Santa Fe Roundhouse. Citizens should gather at the Roundhouse East entrance at 8:30 AM for a pre-meeting.

A large attendance is essential to emphasize the importance of this issue with voters. If you can possibly make it up to Santa Fe Wednesday morning for this last meeting of the Task Force, please do. Here's a special message from Terry Riley about all this:

Hello fellow activists,

We had a fantastic start last year with the action at the legislature on the election reform legislation.  Many of us were instrumental in pushing that through the legislature.  The success was from a coalition of several groups.

I have continued to work on election reform after the legislature finished by attending the Legislative Interim Election Reform Task Force monthly meetings.  Paul Stokes and I attended almost every meeting, not as members, but in the audience.  We feel that a lot of things have changed since the beginning of the 2005 legislature and a lot of those changes have been extremely good.  We have come to a point where the thoughts of the committee have to coalesce into legislation for the upcoming 2006 session.  The ugly reality of partisan politics is surfacing and what looked so hopeful is now not looking so good. 

I believe that a fantastic opportunity has presented itself.  I have seen how the legislature was encouraged to do the right thing last year by activism.  I believe that this can be the greatest year in New Mexico politics but this will only come about with action and commitment from citizens.  We all dream of writing a letter to the editor that forces the politicians to do what we believe is the right thing.  One opinion or one vote does not often bring about that kind of change.  Big changes should be of and about what the majority of the citizens want.  The way for the politicians to see what the citizens want is to petition. 

With time short and no money to support a statewide petition drive, that option is not real.  An alternative is demonstration.  The larger the demonstration, the more attention it will receive.  In today's political arena demonstrators are largely dismissed as radicals, nuts, and unemployed.  A demonstration that can work is one that is held in the chambers of the legislature, one that is measured, dignified, and organized.  What I am asking is for as many people as possible to attend the December 14th meeting of the Legislative Interim Election Reform Task Force.  The meeting starts at 9 AM and will go to at least 3:30 PM.  It is held in the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.  This will make a statement to the committee, and thereby to the New Mexico State Legislature, that we-the-people know what we want and that we expect the Legislature to act in our behalf. 

The legislation on the paper ballot issue that passed last year was weakened in the final writing.  The first reference in the law refers to a Voter Verifiable Paper Trail.  In fact, the law refers to paper trail and then to paper ballot.  That possible confusion can seriously weaken the law.  The legislation that passed also poorly defined how an audit should be performed and what the action should be when an irregularity is discovered.  This can be corrected easily enough and these problems have been discussed by the task force.  Attendance by a large number of citizens at the Legislative Interim Task Force on Election Reform will show all of the legislators of the state that there a lot of people who feel strongly that true election reform needs to be enacted now!

I would like to ask for every person who can to come on December 14th and to be there before 8:30 AM.  The task force meetings have typically started with everyone in the audience standing and giving their name and which county they come from and possibly which organization they represent.  A large turnout may prohibit this but having very LARGE nametags or signs, which include your county will be important.  The message needs to be that we INSIST on voter verifiable paper ballots, optical scan voting machines, and correction of the audit provisions to include a structured recount up to the entire state in the event that the sample finds an error rate above the rate of error defined by the current law.  I realize that the last part of that sounded long and confusing.  Do not worry, the task force members know exactly what we are talking about.

Please contact people if you need a ride, find a way to join us.  Feel free to send this announcement to anybody that you feel would like to attend and to work with us toward honest and accurate elections.  This action will remind our politicians that we are watching and we want fair and accurate elections and that we will accept nothing less.

Thank you,
Terry Riley
Terryactivist@aol.com
899-6275