Urgent Action Alert: Voting Machine Purchase & Press Conference

From Verified Voting New Mexico:
I am asking for your help with a time-urgent matter on election reform. New Mexico county clerks have been given a deadline of Monday 5 December to decide which voting machines they will purchase to meet Help American Vote Act (HAVA) requirements to provide accessibility to disabled voters. The two largest counties in New Mexico are planning to buy touchscreen voting machines built by Sequoia that are seriously lawed. These machines have switched votes, they lost 12,000 votes in Bernalillo County in the 2002 election which were "recovered" in Denver by the voting machine company, they failed to record votes on Spanish language ballots, and they have not been federally certified to meet the HAVA disability requirements.

Because of these problems, there is a lawsuit in New Mexico that is in the discovery phase asking that these machines be enjoined from further use in New Mexico. Ms Herrera has been blocking access to persons on her staff that could provide information in the discovery phase, and she has not made herself available for this process either.

We in the election reform community have been working to get county clerks to buy a superior machine which does meet the HAVA requirements: the AutoMark ballot marker, which the disabled community is able to use to mark paper ballots. This machine is favored by most disabled voters. A number of New Mexico county clerks have already decided to buy the AutoMark. A group of us decided on Friday that we should make a last effort to encourage Ms Herrera, the Bernalillo County clerk, and Ms Espinoza, the Santa Fe County clerk, to buy the AutoMark machine.

We are asking as many people as possible to do three things:

1) Before Monday, e-mail or fax both Ms Herrera (meherrera@bernco.gov Fax: 505-768-4190) and Ms Espinoza (vespinoza@co.santa-fe.nm.us; Fax: 505-986-6294). I would encourage you to use your own words, in a message like the following:

Dear _____________,

I have been informed that you have been told to make your decision by next Monday, December 5 regarding the choice of voting machines that will meet HAVA requirements for access of disable persons. For this purpose, please buy the AutoMark ballot marking machine, a choice that has already been made by a number of your county clerk colleagues. Please do not buy touchscreen machines in an attempt to meet the HAVA deadline. These machines have not performed well. They have switched votes from the desired candidate to an opponent, and they lost 12,000 votes in Bernalillo County in the 2002 election, which the voting machine company was asked to "recreate". The machines are also known to make errors on Spanish language ballots.

[For Ms Herrera only]
I have been further informed that you have been blocking efforts to obtain information relevant to a lawsuit to enjoin the use of the touchscreen machines that malfunctioned in the 2004 elections in New Mexico. This information, including voting data on the touchscreen machines, is important for making decisions regarding the reliability of the voting equipment. Please stop blocking these information-gathering efforts. If voters are to have confidence that elections are fair and their votes will be counted, their chief election official must be open with them.
[End for Ms Herrera only]

Your response to this request will have a major impact on my decision to vote for you or your opponent in the upcoming elections for Secretary of State.

Respectfully,
(Signed)
cc:
tjennings@abqjournal.com (Trip Jennings, ABQ Journal)
djfrosch1@yahoo.com (Dan Frosch, Santa Fe Reporter)
jimwilliams@kunm.org (Jim Williams, KUNM)
nmns@publicnewsservice.org (New Mexico Public News Service)

2) Call Ms Herrera and Ms Espinoza with a brief version of the above.

3) Join us at a press conference at Ms. Herrera's office in the City/County offices in Albuquerque at One Civic Plaza, NW, 6th Floor, to be held at 4:30pm Monday 5 December. Bring friends. This press conference will cover in more detail the information summarized above. A big crowd will make a big impression. Here is a map: https://tinyurl.com/acqx5

We will meet at the northwest corner of Civic Plaza at the the east entrance to City Hall. If you have trouble finding us, call Laura Stokes at 328-1767, or Barbara Grothus at 235-9529.

Thanks for your help. If you have questions, please call.
Paul Stokes, 898-1237