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Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Another View On Unfair Apportionment in Taos County
This post was submitted by Claudia Kuhns of Colorado:
I have been following the precinct elections and the county re-organization in Taos County both this year and in 2005. It is appalling that the gains in organization and equality have been obliterated by one group of so-called Democrats cheating to get their man elected as county chair. It is even more appalling that this appears to have been done with the complicity of the state Democratic Party which has not even followed its own rules in apportioning precinct representatives as well as allowing election fraud in some precincts while disenfranchising citizens in other precincts. Is there really any democracy in New Mexico?
This seems to follow the same pattern of oppression by some members of the Democratic Party in New Mexico in 2004 when an outrageously exorbitant fee was established for a recount in the Presidential election. This fee was established by then Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron and Governor Bill Richardson, both Democrats. It has since been statistically proved that there were gross irregularities in a significant number of precincts in New Mexico. The stopping of the recount was subsequently ruled illegal by the New Mexico Supreme Court.
More recently in the CD 1 race Patricia Madrid narrowly lost to Heather Wilson. Again democracy was thwarted as no recount was done. In many states the narrow margin in this race would have triggered an automatic recount. One wonders why Ms. Madrid conceded so quickly.
Where are the real Democrats in New Mexico? Is the Democratic Party being run by Republicans in Democrats' clothing? Sure sounds like that might be the case.
Claudia Kuhns
Executive Director
The Public Integrity Project
Be the Change USA
Editor's Note: See our previous posts on this topic here, here and . This post was submitted by Claudia Kuhns. Guest blogs such as these provide an opportunity for readers to express their opinions on political topics and do not necessarily reflect the views of DFNM. If you'd like to submit a post for possible publication as a guest blog, contact me by clicking on the Email Me link in the upper left-hand corner of our main page.
April 11, 2007 at 01:05 PM in Candidates & Races, Democratic Party, Election Reform & Voting, Ethics & Campaign Reform, Guest Blogger, Local Politics | Permalink
Comments
I agree totally! Where's the real Democrats?!?! Evidentially, the state party is more interested in enshrining their little playmates in power than making us ALL more powerful by giving us voice. Again, Richardson is going to be in trouble on this. He's going to be going into a Presidential bid with a huge revolt on his hands back home. The whole process was so sickening I'm really not sure if its worth it to stick with this corrupt party.
Posted by: Another Taos Dem | Apr 11, 2007 3:21:21 PM
I asked the President of a major MAJOR national organization why the Governor would try to sweep the '04 election results under the rug and she said, "They all do it."
In New Mexico it seemed to take the filing of the Lopategui lawsuit to finally get some backing for election reform.
Posted by: Carol | Apr 11, 2007 4:05:40 PM
There are many good Democrats in NM but unfortunately there are few in leadership roles in the party. We've had to battle with Richardson's pick for state chair-John Wertheim-since he got in. Wertheim was rude at state meetings, refused to do what the SCC voted in, and seemed bent on keeping the party weak. The SCC voted to start a regular audit of the books for instance and Wertheim sat on it and never did it.
If Richardson were smart he's address the problems, insist on the rules being followed and come out smelling like a rose like he did with the paper ballot thing. Instead the problems worsen and people who could be on his side get mad.
Posted by: SCC Member | Apr 11, 2007 4:47:09 PM
Isn’t it the responsibility of the County Party Chairman to approve the apportionment and make sure all the Precinct Chairman know what that apportionment is? According to the by-laws: Rule 10-3.E
The County Chairperson shall:
: apportion the County Central Committee in accordance with Rule 9-2.C.3.
If the apportionment was incorrect why did the county chairman send a printed copy of the apportionment to all the people in the party organization?
Was the county chairman Billy Knight in cahoots with the evil state party, alongside the Illuminati, the Freemasons, and the Mafia, in some elaborate conspiracy to oust his own superior organization of neo yuppie/hippies? Was Tafoya the new initiate of this unholy alliance of conspiratorial geniuses in a scheme to disenfranchise Anglo voters in Taos? Was it fixed? Was the whole precinct election mathematically engineered for the progressives (former Green Party Members) to lose their butts in a world of back door deals and smoky rooms?
Or maybe this whole thing is blown out of proportion and the cat that posted this apportionment business is some Knight supporter who is sad because their guy lost and they want to cry foul after the game has been played and done (not only that but all the fans have left the stadium; the parking lot is completely empty).
According to this posting the apportionment anomaly was probably worked out with the evil state party and the county chair and they agreed upon it before the county chair mailed it out to everyone. Also if they had gone with another apportionment or the “correct” apportionment as suggested by the posting above, doesn’t that mean that the precincts would have had more delegates? And wouldn’t that mean that Knight would’ve lost twice as bad, (assuming that Tafoya organized accordingly)?
The posting states: “the under-represented precincts are where high populations of non-Hispanics constitute an equal or majority portion of the Democratic electorate for that precinct” and claims that the apportionment “radically disenfranchised the larger Taos County Precincts” It doesn’t seem that bad. So the big precincts and educated affluent Anglos didn’t have even more of an advantage. Big Deal. Don’t get your panties in a bunch. Chill out. Worst things have happened.
The posting is sending a message of extreme criticism that is based on a hyper iteration of the by-laws, however there isn’t any real outcry and it seems like passive aggressive vindictiveness and the type of bickering old people (ages 36-100) do that turns off young people like me.
We young folk (18-35) don’t want to be part of your new or renewed political life and we sure don’t want to stand around and watch you argue about whether precinct 9 or 10 or 258 has three or six delegates, that stuff just seems so irrelevant to young voters and there is no real message other than “we here at the Democratic Party are a bunch of old boring people in your community that like to bicker about trivial things because really, we are taking all this politics way to personal and are to prideful to even pay attention to you young folk and the real issues like why the in the world a college education doesn’t get me a job any more, and why do I have to inherit this screwed up Social Security problem and extremely large National debt.”. All this mess with the apportionment is turning us off, when we need to be turned on.
If the cat that posted this whole “fraudulent” apportionment scenario is not one of Knight’s disgruntled supporters and they are truly a champion of “proportional representation” then why not drop all this precinct business and shoot for the stars. Sue the US House of Representatives and US Senate and get us some more representatives. Screw the precinct delegates, fight to get us some more electoral votes so we can deliver them to the next Democratic president. Don’t get your priorities all screwed up and for god sake’s chill out before you suck the life out of the party.
Alec Paul
Filmmaker/ Taos Native/ Taos County Voter / Fledgling Political Activist
Posted by: Alec Paul | Apr 11, 2007 6:10:14 PM
I would like to point out that in my confrontations with John Wertheim I found out that Governor Richardson did not ask him to be the state party chair and was often embarrased by him.
Terry Riley
Posted by: Terry Riley | Apr 12, 2007 9:57:15 AM
