Great News: Gov. Richardson Pledges $11 Million for Paper Ballot Voting Machines Statewide

Editor's Note: Governor Richardson invited a number of grassroots activists from Voter Action, United Voters of NM, Verified Voting NM, NM Democratic Friends and Democracy for New Mexico to meet with him and participate in today's press conference in Santa Fe. Those in attendance included Terry Riley, Paul Stokes, Charlie Strauss and Steve Fettig, in addition to legislators, clerks, Attorney General Patricia Madrid, Ernie Marquez of the Secretary of State's office and members of the Election Reform Task Force, who all spoke on behalf of effort. Also invited were Ana Canales and myself. Unfortunately, Ana couldn't make it due to a terrible sinus infectiona and I got stuck in a massive traffic jam on I-25 that made me miss the event. Such is life, and all I can offer now is this press release. Great news though!

From the Office of the Governor of NM:

SANTA FE - Governor Bill Richardson today announced that he will work with the Legislature to provide $11 million over two years to purchase new voting machines for all New Mexico counties. The Governor will propose a uniform system of machines with a paper trail that allow voters to verify how they voted.

“I am proposing a bold step forward by standardizing the election systems in all of New Mexico’s 33 counties – a standardized system relying on paper ballots that many vendors already provide, and that 11 of our counties are already exclusively relying on,” Governor Bill Richardson said.

Currently, there is no statewide voting system standard. There are at least six different voting systems used throughout the state. Under Governor Richardson’s plan, all counties would use a paper ballot “marksense” system.

Attorney General Madrid added, “I applaud the Governor’s initiative in seeking to standardize voting in New Mexico with one uniform paper ballot verifiable system. I am hopeful this will provide needed voter confidence in our elections.”

The Governor’s plan could save taxpayers as much as $27 million because the Secretary of State estimates it would cost as much as $38 million to bring our current mix of voting machine systems into compliance with the law.

“It makes no sense to spend four-times the money, and end up with the same complicated mix of voting systems that only frustrate the voting public, complicate the efforts of our dedicated precinct boards, and worse, discourage New Mexicans from going to the polls,” Governor Richardson said.

UPDATE: Here's an article just posted on the Vote Trust USA site that talks about this initiative.