Paper Ballot Surplus: Much Ado About (Almost) Nothing

The Albuquerque Journal seems to be ever-vigilant about certain types of perceived errors or wrongdoing on the part of Dems that can be used for political fodder. Lately, it's been hitting hard on the existence of a surplus of paper ballots for New Mexico's June 3rd primary. Given their continuing front-page coverage of this issue, you'd think it constituted a scandal of epic proportions. The problem is, their reporters don't ask the right questions to get at the facts or the real problems. Many Journal reporters seem to have that habit -- or at least that's how their editorial bosses make them look.

Almost Flawless Election in Bernalillo County
The Journal started out hitting Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver, who just happens to be a Dem running for re-election this Fall against Repub challenger Richard Abraham. By all accounts, Oliver ran one of the most problem-free elections in recent years on June 3rd. She added three more early voting sites, effectively communicated important voting info to the public, operated with maximum transparency and improved poll worker training. The election went off without a major hitch. No long lines. No shortage of ballots. Timely reporting of election results. Everyone who wanted to vote got to do so easily and quickly -- a real success in a county that has experience election problems in the past.

The GOP: Always Whining
The smoothly run election must have irritated GOP operatives who like to whine about fake "voter fraud," despite their accusations being found to be thoroughly without merit, time and time again. This is the bunch who is also up at arms because New Mexico switched to a paper ballot system that replaced dreaded touchscreen and other electronic voting machines proven to be unreliable and hackable. You know, the machines being banned all over the nation because they lack any verifiable way to ensure votes are counted accurately. The GOP hacks consider the switch to paper ballots a step backward, probably because paper ballots provide a permanent record of what goes down on election day.

Whipping Up a "Scandal"
It's common knowledge that the Journal has always been highly amenable to regurgitating GOP talking points. I think the paper ballot oversupply "scandal" is just one more instance of this propensity.

The Journal keeps repeating that it cost $1.3 million for the 1.5 million unused paper ballots that were shredded after June 3rd, and wringing their hands about how much this cost taxpayers. Oh, shame on the Bernalillo County Clerk for following the formula for ballot printing designated by the Secretary of State. This, after the Journal made it a virtual crusade to milk the story of insufficient ballots for February's Dem Party presidential caucus for maximum political gain. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

First off, the Journal cites a per-ballot price of 93 cents. Based on that, they total up how much extra it cost for the surplus ballot supply. The problem is that everybody (except, apparently, the Journal reporters) knows that printing costs aren't figured like that. The main costs come from the set-up and initial run of the job. As more and more copies are printed, the unit cost actually goes down.

Say the print job costs $150,000 for an initial run of 200,000. A significant portion of that pays for the intial set-up. Each additional copy printed after the 200,000 will cost substantially less because the set-up costs have already been offset. The farther away you get from the initial run, the less the per-copy cost. So there's no way that the surplus ballots cost 93 cents each. They may still have been overpriced, but the figuring is off.

The Journal did have to reveal that similar numbers of surplus ballots were printed in the past. And that many extra ballots have to be printed to serve early voting sites that require 850 different versions of the ballot needed for precincts that might have voters show up. But they still insist that there was extensive "waste" in this primary, and then place the "blame" on officeholders who just happen to be Dems.

Start Investigating the Real Culprits
I wish Journal reporters would target the real culprits making our elections such expensive affairs -- the big, mostly Repub-owned corporations that produce, sell and service modern voting equipment and materials. The way things are run in Bush World pretty much dictates that election officials must go to one or another of these often secretive and monopolistic vendors for what's needed in elections. ES&S, Automated Election Services, Diebold (now Premier Election Solutions) and a few others dominate the business of elections. They sometimes tend to jack up costs and keep everything proprietary so no-one knows what's going on inside the machines.

A handful of corporations literally owns American elections, and they force election officials to buy on their terms and enter into expensive maintenance and other contracts after their systems are purchased. It's a very lucrative racket, especially when you consider how unreliable their equipment and services have often proved to be. The public needs to be informed about these kinds of issues so pressure can be brought to convince government representative to fix the problems pronto.

Having a generous supply of extra ballots is part of the solution, not part of the problem. So is switching to voter verifiable paper ballots, as we've done in New Mexico. We're definitely moving in the right direction with our elections, even if some new problems emerge as we move into the paper ballot era. Let's praise election officials when praise is due, as in the case of the Bernalillo County Clerk.

Concentrate on Informing the Public
Another good idea for local journalists would be to provide more in-depth, quality reporting on local and national politics year-round so that more potential voters are knowledgeable and excited about participating in voting. As it stands, a 30% or so turnout of registered voters is considered excellent in these parts. And don't even begin contemplating the huge numbers of our citizens who aren't even registered.

Don't you wish the Journal would try to do something about improving its political coverage instead of pounding on an election official who's done a knock-out job so far? Less pseudo-scandals and rumor-mongering; more fact-based reporting on issues, candidates and voting, please.

It's fine to investigate the surplus ballot issue and whether it would be workable to have print-on-demand ballots at early voting sites or pursue other improvements. But making this story a front-page "scandal" for days on end is just more politically biased BS in my book. Much ado about (almost) nothing, but rife with the juicy anti-Dem innuendo too many in our local media are so fond of.

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