Report from New Mexico

http://tinyurl.com/3laz6

I went to Albuquerque, NM, on Saturday, Oct. 30, and proceeded straight to America Votes HQ.  We spent three days phone-banking and doing visibility work at major intersections and at the University of New Mexico.

 We were exhilarated and optimistic.  Lots of early voting in NM, and polls indicating that Kerry had a good chance of winning made us feel like victory was a real possibility.  Lots of new Democratic voters registered!

I attended training in New Mexico election law on Monday evening, and was assigned to a precinct in south Albuquerque. 

Then, I arose at 5:00 AM on Election Day morning and went to Election Protection HQ.  I collected an Election Protection jacket emblazoned with the legend:  Election Protection Legal Volunteer: You Have the Right to Vote. 

I got a ride to my precinct.  Albuquerque is a huge sprawling city!  The precinct was ½ hour away by freeway from downtown Albuquerque.  This precinct was distinctly suburban-rural, and comprised mainly of working class and poor working class Hispanics. 

All schools in New Mexico close on Election Day so that they may serve as voting sites.  Bus transportation is free throughout the state so that voters may more easily get to the polls.  But in my precinct, there were no buses available. 

I arrived at Polk Middle School at 6:45 AM.  Two attorneys trained by and affiliated with AFL-CIO and the DNC were already there, as well as the poll captain and another volunteer from Election Protection.  The polls opened on time and without incident. 

Provisional ballots appeared to be the largest problem here.  Polling places had been changed from the last election.  Because New Mexico voter registration confirmation cards do not contain the address of the precinct, people have no ready reference to their polling place location.  NM voters are expected to check the Sunday paper to find their precinct address.  If they do not get the paper, they do not know where to vote, so many just go to the old location.  We called EP headquarters to get precinct addresses for many voters, and encouraged them to go to their correct location.  Some were unable to do so because of time limitations or transportation problems. 

We had no way of knowing exactly how many voters used provisional ballots, but I estimate that probably 10% did so at my precinct.  Now that we know that these provisional ballots will never be counted, this seems highly irregular. 

One voter reported a serious error with the touchscreen voting machine.  He voted a straight Democratic ticket, but his presidential vote registered for Nader rather than Kerry.  He complained to a poll worker, who said that she could not correct the error, and pushed his VOTE button for him.  I have his name and phone number on file. 

Not all voters were willing to tell us of their experiences, but most at least acknowledged that they were able to use the machines and did not have problems. 

At the end of the day, we waited until the pollworkers posted Presidential vote results on the precinct door.  In an area that was expected to vote heavily Democratic, Kerry only had a plurality of 12 votes.  Thus I remain extremely concerned about the integrity of the touchscreen voting machines used there, and the overall election results on a national basis.

Other elements of this experience caused me a great deal of discomfort.  Progressives and Democrats must coordinate resources better.  It turns out that America Votes was just one of numerous organizations phoning Democratic voters.  Some people complained of receiving up to sixteen phone calls over a three-day period.  That intrusion alone may have caused some people to vote differently as an expression of their resentment.  As a matter of fact, voters at my precinct asked to whom they could complain about the phone calls.  America Votes, however, insisted that we continue to make these calls despite the duplication of effort and the inconvenience to voters.

I hope to return to New Mexico in two years as an observer in the Congressional elections since I have learned about NM election law. 

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=392&row=0

Enchanted State's Enchanted Vote


Now, on to New Mexico, where a Kerry plurality—if all votes are counted—is more obvious still. Before the election, in TomPaine.com, I wrote, "John Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one ballot has yet been counted."


How did that happen? It's the spoilage, stupid; and the provisional ballots.


CNN said George Bush took New Mexico by 11,620 votes. Again, the network total added up to that miraculous, and non-existent, '100 percent' of ballots cast.


New Mexico reported in the last race a spoilage rate of 2.68 percent, votes lost almost entirely in Hispanic, Native American and poor precincts—Democratic turf. From Tuesday's vote, assuming the same ballot-loss rate, we can expect to see 18,000 ballots in the spoilage bin.


Spoilage has a very Democratic look in New Mexico. Hispanic voters in the Enchanted State, who voted more than two to one for Kerry, are five times as likely to have their vote spoil as a white voter. Counting these uncounted votes would easily overtake the Bush 'plurality.'


Already, the election-bending effects of spoilage are popping up in the election stats, exactly where we'd expect them: in heavily Hispanic areas controlled by Republican elections officials. Chaves County, in the "Little Texas" area of New Mexico, has a 44 percent Hispanic population, plus African Americans and Native Americans, yet George Bush "won" there 68 percent to 31 percent.


I spoke with Chaves' Republican county clerk before the election, and he told me that this huge spoilage rate among Hispanics simply indicated that such people simply can't make up their minds on the choice of candidate for president. Oddly, these brown people drive across the desert to register their indecision in a voting booth.


Now, let's add in the effect on the New Mexico tally of provisional ballots.


"They were handing them out like candy," Albuquerque journalist Renee Blake reported of provisional ballots. About 20,000 were given out. Who got them?


Santiago Juarez who ran the "Faithful Citizenship" program for the Catholic Archdiocese in New Mexico, told me that "his" voters, poor Hispanics, whom he identified as solid Kerry supporters, were handed the iffy provisional ballots. Hispanics were given provbisional ballots, rather than the countable kind "almost religiously," he said, at polling stations when there was the least question about a voter's identification. Some voters, Santiago said, were simply turned away.

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