Senate Paper Ballot Bill Passes Despite Republican Rants

Editor's Note: The Santa Fe New Mexican provides a good account of what occurred at yesterday's Senate Rules Committee meeting on SB 295.

From Paul Stokes of United Voters NM:
I am pleased to tell you that the paper ballot bill, SB 295, was given a "do pass" today. The vote was 5 - 4 on party lines. And the discussions were brutal. The Republicans hammered on their key talking points, using a letter from Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera to provide them with much of their information. An excellent response to that letter from Jim Noel was ignored.

The bill now goes to the Senate Public Affairs Committee. Click to contact members.

Emails and phone calls to these senators will be very important to show the public's interest in getting this bill passed. Based on the close votes on SB 295, it will be important to get all the votes that we can. The next Public Affairs committee meeting is scheduled for 1:30 PM Friday, 10 February, in Room 321 and SB 295 is likely to be heard then; however, check on the Legislature website for information. I hope to see you there.

The Republicans said that, based on Herrera's letter, over a thousand ES&S Model 100 opscans would be needed for early voting sites just in Bernalillo County; that this was a scheme to funnel money to a single supplier; that the AutoMARK ballot marking device did not meet the needs of disabled voters; that the vote count from paper ballots would be inaccurate because of ballot box stuffing, lost ballot boxes, etc.; and that there was no reliable estimate of the cost to convert to paper ballots. They said this with much elaboration over a period of about two and a half hours. They charged that the administration was corrupt, and was forcing a voting system on the state that was not in the public interest.

The Noel letter discussed several options for equipping early voting sites that would be use far less equipment that the thousand opscans mentioned in Herrera's letter, and also corrected some assumptions made in the letter that would significantly reduce the number of Model 100 machines needed if that were the option chosen.