« Interested in the End Results of the NM Legislative Session? | Main | This Weekend: Controversial Play 'My Name Is Rachel Corrie' at Out chYonda »
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Final Results of 2008 NM Dem Caucus: Clinton by 1,709 Votes
Hillary Clinton pulled out a squeaker in the popular vote, winning by a margin of 1,709 votes out of a total of 149,779 votes cast in New Mexico's February 5th caucus. Clinton won 48.80% to Obama's 47.66% in the statewide vote counting election day, absentee and provisional ballots. Obama won NM-01 in the Albuquerque area and NM-03 in Northern NM, while Clinton won NM-02 in Southern NM.
Obama won Bernalillo, Catron, Los Alamos, Sandoval, Santa Fe and Taos Counties, while Clinton won the rest. It was extremely close in Socorro County where Clinton got 692 votes to Obama's 688, or a four-vote difference. Clinton won a total of 14 pledged delegates to Obama's 12.
John Edwards got a total of 2,157 votes, so if a majority of those voting for him had switched to Obama after Edwards withdrew, Barack would have won New Mexico's popular vote. Bill Richardson got 1,305 votes and Dennis Kucinich 574, with scattered votes for the other original Dem contenders, write-ins, etc.
From the Democratic Party of New Mexico
Thursday, February 14, 2008, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Today, ahead of deadline, the Democratic Party announced the canvass results of the 2008 Democratic Caucus.
“With this caucus, New Mexicans had the chance to hear directly from two historic candidates for the presidency,” said Chairman Colón. “Democrats had the opportunity to select the next President of the United States. With two great candidates to choose from, we had the largest turnout in the last 20 years or more. New Mexico Democrats have spoken and here is what they have to say.”
Statewide totals for the 2008 Democratic Caucus:
Barack Obama |
71,396 |
John Edwards |
2,157 |
Christopher Dodd |
81 |
Dennis Kucinich |
574 |
Bill Richardson |
1305 |
Joe Biden |
122 |
Hillary Clinton |
73,105 |
At the start of the process, both campaigns and the Democratic party formed an agreement to make sure the vote counting process was fair, consistent and transparent. Volunteers worked over 2,250 hours to find registered voters, and were able to find 8,200 voter registrations. After a preliminary review of provisional ballots--Twenty percent had either already voted absentee or had failed to attach an affidavit to their ballot, and eight percent of provisional voters were not registered.
“The biggest surprise of this caucus was the more than 3,500 voters---Independents, Greens and Republicans---tried to vote in the Democratic Caucus,” said Chairman Brian Colón. “Clearly, their message to us was---they want change in this country. My message to them is ‘We couldn’t agree more. While we couldn’t accept your vote in our Democratic caucus, we welcome your vote at the general election this November.’” [emphasis mine]
DOWNLOAD A PDF OF STATEWIDE TOTALS HERE
DOWNLOAD A PDF OF COUNTY WIDE TOTALS HERE
February 14, 2008 at 04:40 PM in 2008 Presidential Primary | Permalink
Comments
Headlines are reading " NM vote results finally in after 9 days." Sheesh. This is nuts, election after election. Thanks to all those who helped with the count, nonetheless.
Posted by: | Feb 14, 2008 5:52:54 PM
Again, I believe NM was the only state that had to count provisional ballots, which are very time consuming. In most states, provisionals aren't counted because the margins between the voters are large enough that the provisionals won't make a difference. The regular vote count from election day was finished promptly, as it was counted by hand at the caucus sites and phoned in.
Posted by: barb | Feb 14, 2008 6:12:39 PM
The most damaging story comes out of LA County in California, which tossed out more than 94,000 ballots from non-Democrats in their Dem primary. Non-Democrats could vote in the Dem Primary there, but had to use an odd ballot called a "double bubble." Besides marking your choice for president, you had to fill in an additional bubble to complete the ballot. Very confusing.
Even though you could tell perfectly well who these voters had selected, so far CA is refusing to accept these ballots, instead disqualifying them for a minor technicality. The machines record them as undervotes and authorities dont' want to "waste time" counting them by hand.
On the other hand, NM used the most generous standards possible to count provisional ballot votes, and did not disqualify them for minor mistakes.
You can read about the CA debacle .
Posted by: barb | Feb 14, 2008 6:37:53 PM
Tks for the explanation, Barb--I am sitting in Florida this winter, the state that Hill wants counted--oh, really??--and just hoping Howard keeps a firm grip on the helm at the DNC.
Posted by: | Feb 15, 2008 6:56:58 AM
So, the media wants to continuously present NM as being "behind the times," "late," "disorganized," "not using standards," etc. etc.
As the truth comes out, like in CA and other places, NM looks better and better.
But there will be no reporting of that.
The TRIBUNE last night had some voting processes "expert" from DC who said NM did not use proper standards. I guess CA did. So who discovered the best picture of what the voters intended, flawed and backward NM or the vanguard (hmpf) CA?
Just asking.
Posted by: bg | Feb 15, 2008 7:56:02 AM
More overgrown boys with little you know what's at play.
Posted by: Zazah | Feb 15, 2008 12:50:54 PM
