Democracy for New Mexico

Guest Blog: Maggie Toulouse, Candidate for Bernalillo County Clerk

Editor's Note: When Maggie Toulouse spoke at our DFA-DFNM Meetup last week she promised to send us more information about her qualifications and goals related to her campaign for the position of Bernalillo County Clerk. The Bernalillo County Commission will appoint a candidate on January 1, 2007 to fill the vacancy created by Mary Herrera's election as NM Secretary of State. Here's what Maggie sent:

Maggie Toulouse is the only candidate for Bernalillo County Clerk who has the academic and hands-on experience to improve our electoral system and has a clear agenda to make our elections more transparent, efficient and accessible. 

As the State Director for the non-partisan League of Conservation voters, Maggie led public education campaigns that registered thousands of voters and mobilized hundreds of volunteers to turn out the vote on Election Day.  She has successfully managed several statewide conventions with elections, including the 1996 Democratic Pre-Primary Convention.  As an appointee of the Bernalillo County Commission to the Board of Voter Registration, Maggie pushed for improvements to the voter registration process.

A UNM Phi Beta Kappa with a Masters in Political Science, Ms. Toulouse is a recognized academic having published in the Critique Journal of Politics on New Mexico voting behavior.  She serves as faculty at the UNM Political Science Department and teaches Political Science 200: Introduction to American Politics.

Maggie is running on an agenda for improving our elections process.  As Bernalillo county clerk she will:

• Create new efficiencies and streamline the process of absentee and hand-tallied ballot counting for future elections to ensure reliable results in a time-sensitive manner.

• Implement an election worker retention program and expanded election worker training in order to ensure that Bernalillo County has the best-trained and experienced election team in the nation.

• Work to ensure safeguards against voter fraud and voter intimidation and further protect the privacy of the paper ballot system.

She currently serves as a consultant to Common Cause New Mexico.  Maggie is the proud mother of Christian Toulouse, age 9.

If you have questions or suggestions, please contact Maggie Toulouse at magtoulouse@hotmail.com or 505-833-2023. Click for a Word document version of this resume, should you want to share it with others.

Editor's Notes: If you'd like to contact your Bernalillo County Commissioner to express your views on the candidate they should appoint as Bernalillo County Clerk, . To determine which Commission district you reside in and enter your street address.

This post was submitted by guest blogger Maggie Toulouse. If you'd like to submit a post for possible publication here as a guest blog, contact me by clicking on the Email Me link on the upper left-hand corner of our main page.

The Disappearing Recount in NM-01 and What We Can Do About It

Despite statements all over the media by DPNM Chair John Wertheim that the Party planned to pursue a 2% audit recount of the Patricia Madrid - Heather Wilson congressional race, yesterday's deadline came and went with nothing filed. Another lost opportunity to gauge the accuracy of our new paper ballot - optical scanner system.

Legal Fog
I understand that the State Party got bogged down in trying to decipher the meaning of New Mexico's election law pertaining to recounts, who can legally request them and what limitations apply to the process. There was reportedly much concern that their request -- even if they got a power of attorney declaration from Madrid -- wouldn't be allowed because Madrid had officially conceded. It appears that only candidates themselves can formally request recounts, and only if they believe an error in the tally would be large enough to change who won. Regardless, I'm not sure how supportive the Madrid camp was about seeking any kind of recount, which is a shame considering how many people worked their butts off and dug deep into their pockets to try and get her elected. In a race this close, I think she owed us one.

Madrid Following the Kerry Strategy?
Even if Madrid thought a complete recount would be quixotic, I think the least she could have done was request a limited recount before conceding to see how our new voting system performed. This would no doubt have garnered much positive press and good will for her here and nationally. Instead she apparently bought into the handler notion that requesting a recount in a race decided by 862 voters would somehow tarnish her chances to run again in the future. Remember Kerry and his cave-in on similar grounds in the 2004 prez election? It's hard to calculate just how much negative reaction that decision provoked against Kerry with Dem voters. Sadly, Madrid seems to be following in his misbegotten footsteps.

Money, Money, Money
It's instructive to ponder how tens of thousands of dollars were raised by the netroots in record time to support Dem candidate Christine Jennings' efforts to get all the votes counted in Florida's CD-13. In that race, more than 18,000 votes were "lost" by the electronic machines in a contest decided by only 369 votes. Surely the Madrid campaign could have raised whatever funds were necessary to pay for a full recount in a race decided by less than half a percentage point, let alone a much cheaper limited recount to audit how accurately our scanners counted the votes from the paper ballots. With so much passionate activism going on in the area of election reform, adequate funds could have been raised in no time by the Madrid camp via small donations. But then, we'll never really know, will we?

Mary Herrera Our Last Chance?
The only remaining opportunity for checking the system apparently would be in the form of an unofficial, "educational" audit of 2% of the NM-01 precincts, to which current Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera reportedly agreed prior to the election. I haven't heard a peep from Herrera on this score since the election was certified, have you? I suggest we might encourage action on this front by emailing or calling Herrera and urging her to follow through on her promise. Be polite, but assertive. The DPNM is reportedly looking into how they might support such an effort, and perhaps even contribute funding for it. I hope this is the case and we can at least get a snapshot of how well the new voting system operated.

Denish Proposal for Automatic Recount
The good news is that Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, along with NM State Senators Dede Feldman and Gerald Ortiz y Pino, announced support for passage of legislation this coming January to require a recount whenever the margin in an election falls below .5%, as it did in the Madrid-Wilson race. The proposal would also create a funding mechanism for paying for these mandatory recounts, perhaps by instituting a registration fee for all candidates to be held in a recount pool.

Given the DPNM's discovery of just how vague our law is in terms of recounts, I hope the scope of this recount bill will be widened to include a clean-up of all the legal language currently in force regarding recounts. The election reform community will also be pushing for legislation that would require same day voter registration, tighten the automatic audit provisions that will kick in for the 2007 election cycle and other fine tuning of our election laws. I think it's imperative that we gear up now to actively support these improvements when the 60-day legislative session kicks off on January 16th.

In Search of Certified Results
This might also be a good time to ask why the certified precinct by precinct results of the November election are not yet up on the Secretary of State's website. Once the numbers are certified, I don't understand why there would be any delay in transferring the numbers to the SOS website and letting the public in on the detailed reporting.

Petition: Put Paper Ballots on National Dem Agenda

From Democracy for America: On Election Night, DFA-endorsed candidate Barbara McIlvaine Smith was down by 19 votes in her race for the Pennsylvania state house.  She refused to concede, saying, "It is not about winning or losing... It's about making sure our democracy is intact."

Earlier this week the count of absentee and military paper ballots concluded, and Barbara won by 23 votes -- switching the Pennsylvania House from Republican to Democratic for the first time in 12 years.

This powerful victory happened because every paper ballot was counted.  But across America votes are increasingly being cast electronically with no paper record.  Had the election in Pennsylvania been conducted electronically there is no saying how the race might have been decided.

You helped elect a new Democratic House and Senate in Washington, D.C.  It's time to put our majority into action.  Ask Speaker Nancy Pelosi to put paper ballots on the agenda in the new Congress's first 100 hours:

https://www.democracyforamerica.com/paperballots

The danger of paperless elections is clear. Look at Sarasota County, Florida.  They use paperless touch screen voting machines. In the hotly contested Congressional race there, Election Night ended with Republican Vern Buchanan ahead of Democrat Christine Jennings by less than one-quarter of one percent. This triggered an automatic recount.

On November 20, state election officials certified Buchanan as the winner by 369 votes, despite the fact that there were 18,000 "under-votes" in the county.  An under-vote is when a machine reports a vote cast for another office, but not for the Congressional seat.  The percentage of under-votes in Democratic leaning Sarasota County was far higher than in surrounding counties.  And many voters reported that their votes were not recorded on their electronic ballot. Some said the machine skipped the race while others couldn't find the race listed at all. 

Currently this contest is being litigated in the courts.  But the results of this election will be forever in doubt because there are no paper ballots to review. This is unacceptable.  Congress has the power to mandate that all elections take place using paper ballots.  Ask the new Democratic majority to make it a priority.

The Democrats are committed to an impressive agenda in the first 100 hours of the Congress.  They will raise the minimum wage, require Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices, implement the 9/11 Commission security recommendations, cut the interests rates on student loans, and broaden the types of stem cell research allowed with federal funds.  But Democrats can't stop there.

Let's restore America's faith in Democracy too.  Let's make sure that in the first 100 hours the Democratic majority makes paper ballots mandatory:

https://www.democracyforamerica.com/paperballots

Thank you for doing your part,
Jim Dean, Chair
Democracy for America

Denish to Promote Automatic Recount Measure

More good news. This week Lt. Governor Diane Denish announced she will promote passage of a bill called the Every Vote Counts Act, set to be introduced at the 2007 NM legislative session. NM Democratic Senators Dede Feldman and Gerald Ortiz y Pino joined Denish in touting the bill's merits. According to an article in the Albuquerque Tribune:

The Every Vote Counts Act would set aside $500,000 in state money and require recounts when the difference in the votes is less than one-half of 1 percent in federal or statewide races.

"I want to ensure that the vote of every New Mexican is counted properly and fairly to provide voters equity and foster confidence in the Democratic process," Denish said in a statement.

Many states have laws requiring an automatic recount if the margin between candidates is under a specified percentage of the total vote. If we had such a law on the books here, a mandatory recount would be going on right now in the NM-01 congressional race between Patricia Madrid and Heather Wilson. Wilson's margin of victory was only 875 votes, or less than half a percentage point. Rather than the Madrid camp facing the rather daunting task of raising what they determined would be around $300,000 if they wanted a complete recount, the state would pay the costs on behalf of the entire state's electorate to make sure election results are accurate in close races.

A fund to pay for the mandatory recounts would be created by instituting a candidate registration fee based on the number of registered voters in the candidate's district.

"Ensuring that every vote is counted and counted properly is essential to our system," Ortiz y Pino said. "Mandatory recounts in some cases are necessary to preserve the confidence of the people."

Support Voter Action Investigation of Missing Votes in FL

Submitted by Terry Riley: Please take a few minutes to read the following message about a nonpartisan investigation of Sarasota, Florida undervotes. I fully endorse this organization and this action. I have given a donation and ask that you please consider doing the same. The actions of Voter Action are in no small way connected to the success of the paper ballot issue in the NM Legislature. Please go to their web site and click on the donate tab on the left side of the web page. This is a great opportunity.

From Voter Action:
Voter Action Co-Director and election law attorney Lowell Finley has been in Sarasota since November 9th, investigating the 18,000 missing votes from Florida’s District 13 congressional race in that county. Today, Voter Action is pleased to announce that the People for the American Way Foundation, the ACLU of Florida, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Common Cause are joining this effort on behalf of the voters of Sarasota County, regardless of party affiliation. Based on previous experience and success in the courts to block the use of electronic voting systems across the U.S. and the strength of our new partners, Voter Action is well poised to move this investigation forward and , if as it increasingly appears will be necessary, to file suit to get to the bottom of what happened.

The purpose of this investigation and potential legal action is to 1) Get to the bottom of what happened through legal discovery 2) File legal action on behalf of the voters of Sarasota challenging the validity of the election if need be. 3) Protect the integrity of future elections in Sarasota County, the State of Florida, and the nation.

But in order to do this we need your help. Voter Action needs to raise funds very quickly to continue its work in Sarasota. Even with the legal and organizing assistance of our new partners, we must raise an estimated $45,000.00.

This is an unparalleled opportunity to shed light on the continuing election crisis that plagues Florida, to expose the problems inherent in electronic voting systems, and to demonstrate the harm that can be caused by elections officials with a pro-vendor and anti-voter bias.

Please donate now and share this email with your friends!

Because we are working on behalf of voters and not a candidate or political party, all donations are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by law and can be made through our fiscal sponsor, the International Humanities Center, a 501(c)(3) organization through the Voter Action website.

Voter Actionemail: info@voteraction.org
phone: 206-723-1941
web: https://www.voteraction.org

What is happening on the election front?

Submitted by Terry Riley

You can read the normal slew from the media on what part of the count is or is not ready and such.  They spent time this weekend giving time to petty arguments between party officials.  The coverage is extremely normal.  There is a story that is boiling under the surface and I am having a terrible time getting it out into the open.

I participated in the absentee ballot counting in the warehouse on Wednesday morning.  I witnessed serious counting irregularities and serious procedural problems, which are described elsewhere on this web site.  I am now trying to get somebody to react to the questions/challenges that I have presented.

I have been interviewed on KUNM and the interview is available on their web site.  If you go to:  https://www.kunm.org/news/current/index.php?id=EEyFkZEFZAYjthITZc  I was also interviewed by KRQE and KOAT but I did not see the interview on the 10 PM news that night.  I also was interviewed by the Journal and Tribune but have seen nothing in the papers.

I have given a summary of what I witnessed to representatives of both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.  In addition I contacted the District Attorney’s office.  They sent a person to investigate.  He may have spent a whole hour at the warehouse.  He feels that the system wide over marking of tally sheets was just a small error and that there was no indication of intentional election fraud!  I keep trying to explain to people that when you find a problem of inaccuracy that is evident on nearly all precinct tally sheets that you have a systemic problem and a thorough investigation should be performed to find out how it happened and to make ABSOLUTELY sure that the count is accurate.  I know that it is not!

I am still looking for an avenue that will net results.  I have made this information available to Patricia Madrid and I have spoken with a Republican State Representative who is as upset as I am about the problem. 

If anyone has examples of things that they saw while counting, observing, judging, or challenging I would like to ask you to please add it to the response of this story.  We will get this taken care of.  It will require more people getting involved.

Terry Riley

ELECTION FRAUD IS WMD

Below is a comment that was on a previous post.  It was so interesting I thought it would be good to have it be a new post of its own for discussion and information.  If any one has any new news on the local NM CD1 race please pass it on.

Ps; the webmaster is still out of commission. Soon to return.  This is done by the co-webmaster.

Institutional Election Fraud is Weapon of Mass Destruction- by Kautilya Hegel
November 13, 2006, Philadelphia, Monday, 1:00 PM.

(1) FAULTY ELECTION PROCESS: The vested interests might have compromised the faulty election process in major democracies of the world, namely, USA as well as India, which allows those empowered to supervise the Election process might conspire the election process to deny the Third Party and Independent Voters their fair share of political power and election victories. If entrenched interests continue to sabotage the free and fair election system in India and USA to keep the entrenched politicians in power, then the Democracy as an institution is under grave threat in USA and India.

(2) ELECTION FRAUD IS WMD: The institutionalized election frauds, carried out by those responsible for the free fair and impartial conduct of Elections in USA, Russia, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia and etc., presents greatest threat to human civilization in 21st century. Election Frauds in major democratic nations allow mediocre less competent leadership capture levers of political power in USA as well as India, scuttling the rise of Civilization States of USA and India.

(3) OUTDATED CONSTITUTIONS: Every constitution of democratic nations needs a total facelift by New Constitutional Assembly, convened every fifty years. The US Constitution of 1777 and Indian Constitution of 1950 have become outdated and require total redrafting at hands of new Constitutional Assemblies. United States requires a Federal Election Commission, responsible for the conduct of the entire election process in Federal, State and Local Elections. The 4500+ County Canvassing Boards allows party officials appointed by the two major parties, hijack the will of the people. In India the practice of appointing government officials in election commission requires scrutiny. The Electronic Voting machines without a paper trail operated and managed by political party appointed election officials at the County Canvassing Boards made the mockery of American Democracy in election 2006. The two leading political parties in USA as well as India could be part of an organized conspiracy to steal elections.

(4) GLOBAL ELECTION WATCH: USA and India should allow international observers to watch the conduct of elections. Let us debate: Whether the election process in USA or India prone to election frauds and what could be possible remedies. Kautilya Hegel invites International volunteers to supervise elections process and conduct of elections worldwide. Let us create an Election Watch organization in every city of the world, and volunteers for Election Watch worldwide, which would also supervise US Elections of 2008 and next Parliamentary Elections in India.

Professor Kautilya Hegel, Director- Election Watch, Inc.,
KautilyaHegel@yahoo.com,
https://360.yahoo.com/kautilyahegel;
https://360.yahoo.com/electionwatch
https://clearblogs.com/kautilyahegel
https://indiatalking.com/blog/kautilyahegel

Serious Counting Irregularities at Bernalillo County

THE FOLLOWING WAS WRITTEN BY TERRY RILEY.  ALSO CONTRIBUTING TO THIS POST IS ANNE KASS AND CARTER BUNDY OF WHAT THEY HAVE EXPERIENCED AT THE ELECTION COUNTING WAREHOUSE:

(please note this is posted by mary ellen, not as pretty and organized as what the webmaster would put up but we have got to keep the info going, people are working hard down at the warehouse and we should hear what is going on)

FROM TERRY RILEY:

I worked on Monday opening absentee ballots at the Bernalillo County election warehouse.  I worked on Wednesday counting absentee ballots.  After about two hours of work our table of four noticed that we had a tally sheet that had two votes for each ballot position and only one ballot had been counted. 

On Wednesday morning the tally packs consisted of groups of ballots that had already been tallied, tally sheets and ballots that had not been counted yet.  Our procedure was to spread out a tally packet into a stack of already counted ballots, the tally sheets and the ballots to be counted.  The pre-counted ballots had a sticky-note with the number of ballots counted, the date they were counted and signatures of the ballot reader and the tally marker.  We checked to see that the number of ballots equaled what the sticky-note indicated.  We then added a tally of the ballots that had not yet been counted.

We were on our fourth packet and we noticed that there was only one ballot yet there were two vote tallies on the tally sheet.  We then rechecked the packets that we had already processed and found that every one of them had votes marked and not enough ballots to support them.

We called the presiding judge and asked what to do.  She had a difficult time understanding the problem.  After we managed to explain it she tried to explain it to all of the workers.  She finally allowed me to explain the problem and we decided to recount all tally packs.

I am concerned that we did not recount all of the tally packs, I feel that the process went too quickly.  I spoke with a friend of mine Wednesday evening after he finished working at the warehouse and he said that he had found two packs with the same problem.  I do not trust that everything has been done correctly.

I am terribly concerned that so many, it looked like all, tally packs had extra votes marked.  I believe that in order to have confidence in the tally we need to recount the absentee manually counted ballots.  I believe that this should be treated as election fraud.  In the event this is election fraud I then have to ask for the central tabulators to be audited.  If someone could have been so bold to have marked tally sheets how can we believe that they didn’t also manipulate the tabulators.  As a computer technician I can tell you that they can be manipulated.  I would like to ask for an audit of a percentage of the ballots run through the central tabulator to confirm the accuracy of the tabulator.  I witnessed the certification process of the tabulators prior to the election and have absolutely no confidence that the machines accurately counted the ballots that were inserted for the certification. 

The certification process consists of running a stack of pre-marked ballots, provided by the machine manufacturer, through both machines and seeing if they totals match between both machines.  On the second try they did.  My concern is that the sample was only 100 ballots and that the test was created by the manufacturer.  Anybody can design a test that their machine can pass.  An audit of 2% of the ballots that were run through the tabulator should answer the question of the accuracy of the count. 

A complete manual count of all of the ballots would be very time consuming and expensive. The process in the warehouse area was poorly managed.  Many times there were four people at each table.  One to read the ballot, one to confirm that the reader had not misspoken or misread a vote, one to mark the tally sheet and one to watch to see that the marker makes the correct one mark in the correct space for each vote.  Many tables had only three people, that compromises accuracy.  For a time I was asked to work with only two people.  There was no way to check either of us.  That should have never happened.

We need to take the time pressure off of the count and allow the process to take as long as it needs to take.  There need to be more people working in the warehouse for the count and nobody should be allowed to work more than eight hours in a 24 hour period.  This should hold for all people who work there, from county clerk staff to challengers and observers.  I noticed several people who were there as challengers who looked absolutely dead.  There is no excuse for making anybody work that long and without sleep.

Terry Riley      United Voters of New Mexico      899-6275       Terryactivist@aol.com

THE FOLLOWING IS WRITTEN BY ANNE KASS:

Terry,

I recognize that your opinion is that something worse than sloppiness has occurred with the absentee ballots, and that you are also preparing a report of what you saw and your views about it.  My observations and opinions are offered to you as well.

My recollections and opinions:

On Saturday or Sunday, before the hand counting started, Jan told me and Corley Anderson, another Dem. challenger, that the hand counting would be done by teams of four.  One party reading, the opposite party marking, each being watched by someone from the party opposite to theirs.  She also said that the reader and marker would swap jobs regularly and frequently.  She asked us to find 16 Democrats who were alert and good with numbers and precision work because she planned to work 8 tables.  We called for 16 Democrats, who arrived Sunday afternoon because Jan said she was about to begin the counting.  Instead they were put to work opening envelopes because Jan would not listen to us when we told her there were 500 ballots ready to be hand counted.   She insisted there were only a hundred or so, and that she wouldn't start the hand counting because until she had enough ballots, "it wasn't worth it."  We tried to tell her that we thought it would take at least 2 minutes per ballot, and at that 500 ballots would take 16 hours for one table of four to count  and we tried to extrapolate to the 5,000 ballots we anticipated would need hand counting.  She insisted that there would be a very few ballots for hand counting.   (As of Tuesday afternoon, when the 16 to 20 tables of hand counters were more than half through with the first 1,900 ballots, she was still in a state of denial, claiming that hand counting was almost done.   I tried to tell her that there were another 2,000 ballots that needed hand counting stored in a group of black boxes near the counting machines.  She told me I was mistaken, but she did not look in the boxes--until Jim showed up at 7 p.m. Tuesday night, and called her attention to the 2,000 ballots in the black boxes.)

As 5 p.m. Sunday neared, I asked Jan if she was going to start the hand counting that day.  She said no.  I said it was going to be difficult to get another 16 Democrats to make sure the teams of four plan could be implemented.  At that point Jan said that she was not going to use teams of four, indeed she insisted that she had never said any such thing and had never used teams of four.  Rather, she would use pairs of two and the partisan challengers would serve as the honesty/accuracy check, even though we were only allowed 6 challengers (12 total) on the floor, and one of them from each party had to watch the machine counting.  I understand that on Wednesday, the day after the election, and after numerous errors were found, the hand counting was being done in teams of four.  If nothing else, the hand-counted ballots were counted with no consistency in process, knowledge, standards...no consistency whatsoever.

On Tuesday when the counting actually started, by time I arrived at 2 in the afternoon, Jan had increased the number of tables from 8 to 16 or 20, in pairs of 2, and she had instructed the challengers that they were not allowed to "hover" over the workers.   That is to say, there was NO meaningful honesty/accuracy check, from the very beginning.

Later on Tuesday, when the envelope openers had nothing to do, she decided to put a third person at each of the counting tables, supposedly to watch for honesty/accuracy.  There, obviously, could not be party balance with three people at a table, the "independents" being few and far between.

When Jim took over Tuesday night and people started to walk out, or stumble out half asleep, he determined that three at the counting tables were unnecessary and not required by the rules and so even the 3rd person honesty/accuracy check disappeared.

In addition, on Tuesday morning, when Susan Conway was in charge of the process, they (the Dems. Repubs. and Precinct Officials) arrived as some agreements about how to interpret voter intent, including: 

If a voter filled in both ovals in any given race, that was an over-vote and would not be counted: UNLESS

If a voter filled in both ovals in any given race, but then put a check-mark through one, it was a mistake, as opposed to a "real" over-vote, and the check-marked oval would be counted as the voter's intent.

If a voter filled in both ovals but then put an X through one oval, it was a mistake, not an over-vote, and the oval without the X through it would be counted as the voter's intent.

   

They also agreed that because so many of the ballots had filled-in ovals for the "straight party" vote, but then proceeded to fill-in all the ovals under it, that the voters had been confused into thinking the ballot called for them to state their party registration rather than that they were voting a straight ticket.  I'm not clear how exactly that played out in the various specific situations that it came into play.  (My own thinking is that the straight-party-oval should have controlled, with only the votes for any opposite party-candidates to the contrary being counted as outside the straight ticket vote, although it is obviously a murky area.)

   

These agreements led to at least two ballots that I saw personally, and was told there were more, where the voter filled-in the straight-party ticket oval for the Democratic Party, then filled-in the oval for Jeff Bingaman, then wrote in Jeff Bingaman's name on the write-in line and filled in the "write-in" oval, (That is, the voter's intent to vote for Jeff Bingaman was without question.)  Those votes were disallowed because two ovals had been filled in without either one of them being either checked or Xed out.  It was considered a "real" over-vote.

On Monday  Jan, the presiding precinct judge, and Jim, her next in line (both Republicans) agreed that on election day they would share the day with 7 to 7 shifts.  Therefore, during the day, there were only three of the four required judges present, Jan, Republican and Claudia and Cecelia, Democrats.  Tuesday night, Jim arrived at about 7.  Jan left sometime after 8 and both Claudia and Cecelia left at 8 or 9.  Jan had pulled a Republican worker named Bruce off the tables and sworn him in as a judge.  He was a good enough guy, but he had told me on Sunday when he first arrived that he'd never been involved in the absentee process before.  How he could be considered "qualified" to be a precinct judge, I don't know.

Later that night Chris Papalio, a Dem. challenger, realized there were only two judges, and they were both Republican.  It was about 10 at night, people were tired, and there was chaos as people left and took a break and "new" workers arrived, many of them looking tired as well.  We asked Jim to close the precinct for the day (as the law allows him to do) but he refused to consider it.  We pointed out the two Republican judge problem, hoping that would force him to close the precinct.  Jim wandered around the room, found a "new" worker who had Democrat on his label, asked him if he wanted to be a judge, and then swore him in.  The man's name was Mark.  He talked to me when he had arrived a few minutes earlier, to determine if he would be a challenger or worker.  He told me he'd been at a precinct since 6 that morning and was tired.  When Chris asked him how he would interpret the standards to determine voter intent, Mark said he hadn't a clue.   Chris told Jim that Mark was not qualified to be a judge.   Corley Anderson, another Democratic challenger, agreed to serve as judge, and Jim then swore-in Corley Anderson.  At that point there were three judges, two Republican and one Democrat, with two of the four never having been trained to be a precinct judge.  Additionally, there were the inconsistencies that were an unavoidable consequence of Jan and Jim breaking the day into two shifts.  I think the law calls for four judges, two from each party.

At midnight Tuesday, with a new batch of workers, many of whom appeared to have come directly from a campaign party, judging by their attire, Jim pushed forward with the counting, and he apparently continued with counting through the night. 

It is my opinion that there were basically no fail-safe checks on the hand-counting process, from the beginning.  Indeed, the process, with too few people who were minimally trained and who were required to work too long hours, with too few supervisors, also inadequately trained, was practically designed to fail.  No one should have the slightest confidence in the accuracy of the hand counted ballot results. 

I also think that it would be appropriate to compel the County to do a complete re-count of the hand-tallied ballots, at the County's expense, under close supervision, with accuracy checks in place with teams of four or with a double counting by two pairs of two.  No counter should be allowed to work longer than 8 hours at a time, and with the standards about how to interpret "voter intent" to be arrived at by officials with due deliberation, not by partisan challengers, on the spot, ad hoc.  Making the County do and pay for such a recount may impress upon the County that accuracy is far, far more important than speed, and that in fact, speed decreases accuracy, and in the end, with a recount, the speed is lost as well.

Let me also note, just to make this report complete, that Patsy won the early vote 52/48.  Patsy, I think, won the election-day-in-person-vote by a narrow margin.  When it came to the absentee vote the margin was 55/45 in favor of Heather. 

It has long been claimed that more Reps vote absentee than Dems, but this year Dems requested a similar number of AB ballots.   At one point the numbers I had were: 23,577 to Democrats while Republicans requested 24,371 for a total of  47,948.  That's a 51/49 ratio.   I have a recollection that someone said that in the end there were almost 56,000 ABs requested, and roughly 51,000 returned, so I'm assuming that people were exercising their right to request ABs as long as the law allows.  I don't have the final ratio of Dems to Reps, but in any case, the AB ballots requested were not, as they had been in the past, overwhelmingly Republican.  So that explanation doesn't persuade me that the 55/45 split is of no concern.   The polls showed Patsy ahead.  The early votes showed Patsy ahead, in line with the polls.  The election-day vote was closer, but I think Patsy won it.  It is this puzzle about the absentee voting ratio that I think needs to be investigated, in addition to a complete re-count of the hand-tallied ballots.

Anne Kass

THIS LAST WRITE UP IS BY CARTER BUNDY:

To whom it may concern:

On Wednesday morning, November 8, I went to count Bernalillo County absentee ballots at the warehouse at 1551 Mercantile, Suite C, in Albuquerque.  I was sworn in quickly, and sat at a table with a Democratic ballot reader (Andrew V.) and a Republican tallyer (Robert Cushing, a Wilson staffer from Washington, D.C.).  Initially my job was to watch that the name being called was correct AND that the correct tally was made.  An obvious flaw of this system is that it is impossible to always watch the person tallying, so it is very easy for that person to change votes if s/he wants.  I don't believe Robert ever did that, and I did my best to keep track of total votes for Wilson and Madrid in my head, but it certainly is possible in a three-person system.

After doing just over one precinct with just the three of us, a fourth person (Steve, a Republican), joined us.  He watched the ballots being read by Andrew the Democrat, and I watched Robert Cushing tally--and also watched the pen and tally sheet exclusively.  This system was very fair, and very efficient.  I don't believe there was any election fraud committed by anyone at my table.  However, all of us had serious concerns about the packets which were being given to us.

Each packet has four tally sheets (to cover all of the elections on the ballot, including federal races, statewide races, local races, bond issues, retention votes, and constitutional amendments) and, we were told, ALL of the absentee ballots from that precinct which weren't counted by machine.  Several of the packets given to us already had tally marks on them.  Some of them had some ballots in front of the tally sheets with others in the back, while some had all of the ballots together either in front or back of the tally sheets.

The most troubling part was that there was no discernable rhyme or reason for the tallies.  In one packet, there were 19 tally marks for Governor (14 for Dendahl, 5 for Richardson, or something very close to that) and 19 ballots.  However, since we weren't sure if the tallies which were already on the tally sheets were meant to reflect those 19 ballots or others, our table (Dems and Republicans) did a brief audit of just the Governor's race.  The 19 ballots in fact had 11 Richardson, 5 Dendahl, and 3 no votes.  I'm pretty sure it was precinct 500, but we also did 502, 504, and 505, and it could have been one of those.  The judges told us to simply cross out the previous tallies and re-do the packet, and eventually got up and, in a very confusing way, tried to instruct all the tables to do that with any packets that came to them previously tallied.  In fact, one presiding judge, a Republican named Jan, did such a poor job of explaining the new policy that she asked Terry Riley to explain it (he did a much better job, but it was still confusing to some tables).

Other packets had more tally marks for some races than there were ballots.  One of ours (I believe it was one of the four precincts listed above) had nine tallies in some races, but there were only six ballots.  We asked the judges if some completed ballots had been put somewhere else, and they didn't have an answer (nor did they have any other explanation for the discrepancies).

All four of us--Democrats and Republicans--were left shocked at the sloppiness of the entire process.  A little after noon, one of the judges, an older gentleman wearing a blue shirt, told us to finish our packet that we working on because they had to stop the current process and start over.  We didn't push as to exactly what he meant, but it seems that there were so many problems and questionable packets given to the morning workers that had been worked on during the late hours of election night that none of the tally sheets from that period could be considered reliable.

I don't know if they re-started the process in a more disciplined way, but I would have extreme doubts as to the accuracy of any tally sheets compiled during election night or Wednesday morning.  Further, having been the observer with three people and with four people, I would make a strong case that no tally sheets done by two or three people should be considered reliable.  Only a four or more person tally process can be considered reliable, because it is only with that many people that you can have one person watch the ballot reader all the time and one person to watch the tallyer all the time.

While I am not accusing any particular person of fraud, the disconnect between the tally sheets and ballots in a few packets I saw were so obvious that I have no doubt that some election fraud occurred on election night, when there were apparently many three-person tables.

I am prepared to put any of the above into affidavit form and to swear and/or testify to any of the above.

Sincerely,
Carter Bundy
3:55 p.m., Thursday, November 9, 2006

No More Clowns: Vote Democratic!

You may recall an earlier post about a pony board created and paid for by Terry Riley and Friends that has been up since last month near Louisiana and Zuni in Albuquerque. These are photos from Terry of a full-size version that went up about a week before the election on Menaul just West of Eubank.

Both boards will carry the message through November 7th. This is grassroots energy in action, isn't it?

New board near Menaul and Eubank

(Click on photos for larger versions.)

Dems Have Early Voting Edge in NM-01

Local blog New Mexico Matters has a spreadsheet that shows early voting turnout through November 1st for New Mexico's first congressional district, the Albuquerque-centered district where Dem challenger Patricia Madrid is taking on Repub incumbent Rep. Heather Wilson. Totals of votes cast to date, which include both absentee (mail-in) ballots returned by voters and in-person early voting around the Congressional district:

Registion	Voters	Percentage
Declined to State	4,940	7.4
Democratic	32,730	48.8
Independent	760	1.1
Republican	28,594	42.6
GRAND TOTAL:	67,060	100.0

Of course we want this trend to continue as turnout may well be THE major factor in who wins this race. Today is is the last day for early voting, which ends at 6:00 PM at 13 locations in the Albuquerque area. More info. The deadline for requesting an absentee ballot was yesterday. According to the NM Secretary of State absentee ballots must be returned to the county clerk or the voter's precinct before 7:00 PM on Election Day to be counted.