Democracy for New Mexico

Green Green

Passed along from Green sources by Eric Elison:

As of this writing, the Supreme court has not responded to our petition for a hearing.

In the meantime, the Green Party of Santa Fe would like to invite you all to our holiday party, Saturday evening, beginning at 4:30 PM, Dec 18, at the Commons, 2300 W. Alameda. It's pot luck, so if you have a favorite dish, please bring it along. If you want to stay over, please let us know as soon as possible, so we can make arrangements.

We really appreciate the enthusiastic response to the recount, and this is one way we say 'thank you'. Hope to see you there. For more info, call Rick Lass, 982-2478, 920-0540

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Count Our Votes!

JOIN THE RALLY

At the State Capitol, Santa Fe, East Entrance

Sunday, December 19th, At Noon

SUPPORT THE RECOUNT IN NM

IF THE UKRAINIANS CAN DO IT

SO CAN WE

Find out how you can help support the NM recount
Find out what other States are doing
START ORGANIZING
Get educated,
be part of the process
FIND OUT WHAT YOU CAN DO

Speakers:
Paul Christie, PACE
Rick Lass: Green Party Santa Fe

Sponsored by: The Green Parties of Taos & Santa Fe, Veterans for Peace Santa Fe Chapter #55, and VerifiedVotingNM

Contact 505-776-2836 for more information.

Urge Your Rep to Support NM Medical Marijuana Bill

From Reena Szczepanski, Director, Drug Policy Alliance New Mexico:

In just a few short weeks, the rap of a gavel inside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe will bring us another chance to do what's been impossible so far -- passing a medical marijuana law here in New Mexico. I'd like to share with you our progress so far, and fill you in on how you can help.

Republican Sen. Steve Komadina, the only physician in the legislature, will be sponsoring a bill to provide sick and dying patients in New Mexico with access to medical marijuana. I'll bet you didn't know that 250 people received medical marijuana in New Mexico through the Lynn Pierson Therapeutic Research Program from 1979 to 1986. The study was run through the University of New Mexico and was actually approved by the FDA, NIDA, NCI, and the DEA! It found that both smoked marijuana and oral d-9-THC were effective for treating nausea. We were one of the first states to sponsor a program like this, and now it's time to honor that history by providing access to this medicine again.

Please join dozens of your fellow New Mexicans in urging your state lawmakers to join the Alliance in our fight for medical marijuana. Send a free fax today asking them to co-sponsor and vote for the Komadina bill, which will come up for consideration in mid-January.

Also, here's a special opportunity to help us with our year-end fundraising campaign. It's called the Bake Sail, and it gives you the chance to become a volunteer fundraiser and win a Mediterranean cruise. You can make a donation using my Bake Sail page, or set up your own and become a volunteer fundraiser today: Click for My page or Your own page.

Cobb Calls for Compromise in NM Recount

According to an article in today's Albuquerque Journal, the Green Party's David Cobb is negotiating for a compromise involving his suit to compel an immediate recount. He's proposing a partial recount of a 10 percent sample of the vote, with a full recount to follow if significant problems are discovered.

Quote:

"We know that there were extraordinary voting anomalies on precincts that used the new technology," Cobb said at a Santa Fe diner. Of particular concern, Cobb said, are voting machines that do not produce a paper trail; the so-called undervote, when some people vote for local offices but do not vote in the presidential race; and the reliability of optical scanning machines that count paper ballots.

Cobb and Badnarik did not meet the Thursday deadline for the $1.4 million deposit the NM Canvassing Board required for a full recount. Therefore, only a NM Supreme Court decision or a compromise with the Canvassing Board can make a recount possible. As of 5:00 PM on Thursday, the court had not acted on the matter nor scheduled a hearing. Justices Edward L. Chavez and Petra Maes have recused themselves on this case.

Quote from Cobb:

"Everything we have done has been an attempt to establish a cooperative relationship with elections administrators in this state," he said. "This is about auditing the machinery and the technology, and we really have been thwarted at every turn by the governor's office." (emphasis added)

UPDATE: AQB DeanCorps Caroling Monday Evening

Dean Singers Update from Nance Crow:

In order to best serve the folks we'll sing to, change is in order for our DeanCorps event on Monday, December 20th:

5:15-5:30: Meet at Albuquerque Rescue Mission Parking Lot, Third and Iron SW. Streets go in both directions in downtown now. Iron is one block south of Coal Ave. We'll pick what we sing and I'll pass out bags of Hershey's Kisses to hand out. They feed as many as 500 in shifts of 80 people!

Please wear festive gear if you can: Santa Hats and Reindeer Antlers work as do seasonal colored sweaters and scarves. If you have any Dean or DFA pins or shirts, you're encouraged to wear those too.

6:00: Go to Dismas House, (a halfway house for guys and gals re-integrating from 'corrections'), 701 Candelaria NW.

6:45: Go to Barrett House, (shelter for homeless women and children), 905 13th St. NW

Choose one:
When we're done we can:

a) go eat somewhere
b) return to Nance Crow's for posole and vegetarian tamales
c) go home and frantically attack holiday to do list

Invite your friends and please email or call me if you are planning to participate:

Bill Sullivan and Nance Crow
324 Hermosa SE
Albuquerque, NM 87108
(505) 265-8113
NLCorvus@att.net

Note: Original post about this event can be found here.

REMINDER: Democratic Party of Bernalillo County Meeting Tonight

From the DPBC e-news:
THIRD THURSDAY MEETING - AGENDA CHANGE

Lt. Governor Diane Denish will be unable to attend the Third Thursday meeting on December 16, 6 PM, at the UNM Law School, 1117 Stanford NE, Room 2401. We hope to have her address the county party in the near future.

Instead, Matt Farrauto, Communications Director for the DPNM will assess the results of the election comprehensively and discuss what we look forward to in terms of strategy and organization at all levels of the party.

Your input is valuable.  Please attend so that your opinions may be heard.

If you would like to be added to the e-news, please send your name, e-mail address and County to dpbc@att.net.

Writ Denied in NM Recount Effort

From Sonja Elison:
Just heard from Rick Lass, the State Chair of the Green Party of NM. The judge denied the Writ of Mandamus, so the options are to appeal, to go to federal court (which is packed with Republican judges thanks to Sen. Dominici) or to get the $1.4 million surety bond.  The lawyers are conferring now.

DNC/Kerry's campaign number is 202-863-8000 if you'd like to urge them to donate the funds. Gov. Richardson's office number is 505-476-2200 if you'd like to comment on the NM Canvassing Board's decision not to allow the presidential race recount unless $1.4 million is paid by tomorrow at 10:00 AM. More contact information is contained in an earlier post on this site.

UPDATE: The Albuquerque Journal online just put up a story on this. Excerpt:

A lawyer for the Green and Libertarian presidential nominees who requested the recount said they would take their fight to the state Supreme Court unless some kind of compromise could be worked out with the board.

"I think the judge's decision does not comply with the law," Lowell Finley said.

He had argued that the board went beyond the law Tuesday when it voted to require the payment of $1.4 million by 10 a.m. Thursday.

Finley said the Greens and Libertarians are "fully prepared" to pay for the recount, but that the law requires a deposit of no more than the $114,400 they already have deposited.

Vigil said the $114,400 "has got your foot in the door," but that the board was within its rights to require more up front.

Finley said he would discuss with board lawyers the possibility of narrowing the recount request to review only a portion of the state's voting machines used in the Nov. 2 general election.

NM's Recount Prevention Department

From the Rocky Mountain Progressive Network (via our friend in Taos):

Bought and paid for in the Land of Enchantment -- why interfere with the process outright, when you can pretend to cooperate while raising the bar impossibly high?

This gets interesting -- according to the Institute on Money in State Politics website, Ms. Vigil-Giron's 6th largest campaign contributor in 2002 was one Ken Carbullido, vice president of Election Systems and Software (ES&S)...

Rebecca Vigil-Giron is a Democrat, and other major campaign contributors include the New Mexico Federation of Labor. If that initially throws you off the scent, it's understandable -- I did a double take before thinking it through. Welcome to the confounding world of American elections, where the conflicts of interest seem to wedge their way in, heedless of other affiliations.

PR Newswire, Sept 25, 2003

The New Mexico Secretary of State has awarded a five-year, multi-million dollar agreement to Election Systems & Software Inc. (ES&S), to build, deploy, and support a HAVA-compliant, centralized, real-time, statewide voter registration and election management system...

Such a cozy relationship, these Secretaries of State and their election-system benefactors. That isn't much of a secret:

Shortly after leaving office, former California Secretary of State Bill Jones sent letters to each member of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, reassuring them that the electronic voting machines they wanted to buy were reliable.

One month after Jones sent the letters, the Republican became a paid consultant for Sequoia Voting Systems, a touch-screen manufacturer that was bidding for Santa Clara County's $19 million contract and ultimately won it.

Critics say Jones' move illustrates a troubling reality of elections in the electronic age: close, often invisible, bonds link election officials to the equipment companies they are supposed to regulate...

In addition to hiring former secretaries of state and their staffs, voting equipment companies help pay for a multitude of industry conferences, including those sponsored by organizations like the National Association of Secretaries of State, or NASS.

"Personally, I've known a lot of these people for a long time, and we've become a family," said Rebecca Vigil-Giron, New Mexico's secretary of state and NASS' president-elect.

According to an NASS spokeswoman, the fees paid by corporate sponsors such as Diebold, ES&S, IBM and Accenture account for more than half of the association's $420,000 budget.

When does this start to matter? About the time this same individual decides to ensure the products of these companies never get properly audited.

These recount efforts represent an priceless opportunity to study the large-scale implementation of a system both vital to our democracy, and imperiled by credible accusations of vulnerability -- or worse. If the systems work as well as the industry reps -- that is, the ones padding Ms. Vigil-Giron's expense account -- claim, then such an analysis would vindicate them -- and put these questions to bed.

Leads inevitably to a rather disturbing question, doesn't it? Perhaps answered in part by understanding these collusive links? Does New Mexico have the courage to ask it?

Planning Meeting This Week for ABQ Counter-Inaugural

From Stop the War Machine's email news:

You are invited to help plan the January 20th counter-inaugural: On Wednesday, December 15, there will be a meeting in the basement of Irysh Mac’s (on Yale, 1/2 block south of Central), beginning at 6:30 PM.

The meeting will discuss details for the big anti-inaugural event in Albuquerque on January 20th. This will be at UNM Smith Plaza, on the south side of Zimmerman library, between Zimmerman library and the SUB, from 10 AM to 2 PM. At 2 PM there will be a march from Smith Plaza to the Pete Domenici Federal Courthouse, and there will then be a vigil at the Federal Courthouse.

Questions? Contact:
jacque3@unm.edu or citizen@comcast.net

A Community Dialogue for a New Peace Movement

From Stop the War Machine's email news:

Dear Friends of Human Rights and Peace,

Please join me on Wednesday for a key Community dialogue. I am preparing to do these around the country with a court transcriber putting down your thoughts and ideas on the key questions of our time about Peace. Why is the notion of "peace", which is an organizing principle for positive human relations, a political term with a weak or liberal label? How can we reframe peace to make it more understandable so it may become part of our schools, workplaces, etc?

Please come to express your views and help us in this discussion. Please share this with your lists and friends. I think you will find the event hopeful and exciting (something we could all use for the New Year).

Eric Sirotkin
505-266-2753

Reframing Peace
A Community Dialogue for a New Peace Movement
Wednesday, December 15th
Albuquerque Peace and Justice Center
201 Harvard S.E.
7:00 - 9:00 PM

Eric Griego First Entry In 2005 ABQ Mayoral Race

City Councilor Eric Griego's kickoff party for his entry into Albuquerque's 2005 mayoral race happens this Sunday afternoon from 3-5 PM at La Posada downtown. (See earlier DFNM blog post here for the details.)

According to an article in this morning's Albuquerque Journal, other possible mayoral candidates include County Commission Chairman Alan Armijo, Judith Espinosa, a former head of the state transportation and environment departments and Bob Schwartz, who finished second to current Mayor Martin Chavez in the 2001 mayoral race and is a crime policy advisor to Governor Bill Richardson. Mayor Chavez is expected to run again for the post. John Sanchez, who lost to Richardson in the 2002 race for governor, reportedly is being urged to run despite the fact he currently lives in Los Ranchos.

Griego, a first-term city councilor, is the favorite of many progressives and is known for tangling with Mayor Chavez. He brings experience with public policy research and analysis, and is a passionate supporter of planned-growth strategies to counter the sprawl of unrestrained development. He also took a strong stand against extending Paseo del Norte through the Petrolgyph National Monument on the West Side. Albuquerque voters approved the road extension in November.

Here's a TVI Times article that describes Griego's professional background and an Albuquerque Tribune article that details his experience as a stand-up comic.

Those who have reportedly decided not to run for mayor this time include Councilor Brad Winter, Council President Michael Cadigan, Richard Romero, who lost to Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) in November, State Sen. Linda Lopez (D-Albuquerque), Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White (R) and former city attorney David Campbell.

The mayoral race is nonpartisan and Albuquerque's City Charter requires a run-off between the top two vote-getters if no candidate receives at leat 40 percent of the vote. The run-off requirement, having been declared in violation of the state constitution seven years ago, was reinstated when voters passed a state constitutional amendment to permit it in November.