Governor Martinez-led Board Denied Request for More Vote Machines

Press release from ProgressNowNM:

Governor Martinez and her hand-picked Board of Finance denied funds to run a smooth election in Sandoval County.

Newly uncovered emails from the Secretary of State’s Office show that her office knew of potential voting delays on Election Day but Governor Martinez’s and her Board of Finance denied a request to purchase more machines just a month before voting started.

Martinez told KRQE on Election Day, “the Secretary of State was able to spend what was necessary to make sure that there were enough machines at every location." This new information directly contradicts Martinez’s assertion.

During Thursday night’s Sandoval County Commission meeting, Chairman Darryl Madalena read from a portion of a September 18, 2012 email from the Director of the Secretary of State's Elections Bureau showing that the Secretary of State asked Governor Martinez and the Board of Finance (Martinez is its president) for $1.4 million in emergency funds to "meet the requests for an increased number [of Autovote machines] for the General... Our request was tabled. The Board did not allocate any additional funding to cover the costs of the Election."

ProgressNowNM has posted the entire two-page email on its website at ProgressNowNm.org/blog

In the email to clerks from Bobbi Shearer, Elections Bureau Director, she blasts Martinez’s Secretary of Finance Tom Clifford and the Board of Finance, of which Martinez is the president and appoints all four public members, saying "the Board does not have an adequate understanding of the election process” and ridicules their questions about voting convenience centers.

From the email it is clear that that the Secretary of State accepted responsibility to provide sufficient Autovote machines to the clerks and acknowledges that more had been requested after the primary election. The clerk request for more equipment prompted a budget crisis for the Secretary of State who had already spent election money on non-election day items like voter purge cards and postage.