Posted on 10/19/2004 8:47:53 PM PDT by nypokerface
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Unless the presidential election is a blowout, the Land of Enchantment will see lawsuits challenging the outcome, a key Republican state party official predicts.
Greg Graves, executive director of the New Mexico GOP, said: “The honest ballots counted will give President George W. Bush a narrow victory” and the state’s five electoral votes. Just a few feet from Graves’s office, Scott Jennings, executive director of New Mexico’s Bush campaign, said the president would beat Kerry “in a free, fair election.”
But Graves anticipates that, in addition to 615,000-620,000 legally cast votes, there will also be “15,000 to 20,000 fraudulent votes,” which could hand the election to Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry.
In any case, a close election will translate into legal challenges of the outcome, Graves said. “Every time a fraudulent vote is cast, it disenfranchises those of us who obey the law,” he added.
While Albuquerque just hosted the world’s largest hot-air-balloon festival, Republicans assert that Graves’s predictions are more than hot air. Several state election officials have told The Hill that not enough safeguards are in place to prevent fraud.
“You can’t knock on every door,” said Fran Hanhardt (R), county clerk of San Juan County, New Mexico’s fourth-largest county. “Someone could register their dog if they really wanted to. … If they filled out the forms correctly, we wouldn’t know it was fraud; we accept it as fact.”
But Ernest Ortega, a spokesman for Democratic Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron, said the system in place “works pretty well, and I have confidence that people are getting registered correctly.”
Ortega said that 150,000 new voters have been registered, adding that the biggest problem for state officials is that many forms were not filled out completely.
Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera (D) said she went public with 3,000 incomplete registration forms to allow voters to add missing information. As a result, she said, most of those forms have since been cleared. Bernalillo is the biggest county in the state.
But Herrera also said that a case involving two minors registering to vote was not caught until their parents found their children’s voter-registration cards in the mail.
Graves said the state has a “long history of perceived voter fraud,” adding that there is “no question that there are shenanigans pulled by Democratic elected officials to [game] the system” in their favor.
But Graves was quick to point out that “it is probably not the Democratic Party itself that is perpetuating the problem.” Instead, he blamed liberal 527 groups and their aggressive voter-registration efforts, which he said have resulted in 100,000 new voters.
Republicans are especially worried that canvassers are signing up voters and helping them request absentee ballots simultaneously. Graves said he knows of a case where 30 absentee ballots were sent to an office building, asserting that the potential for fraud in such cases is very real.
“I think there is enough evidence that there are people who register voters fraudulently,” Graves said.
“Do I think that the governor and the secretary of state and the Democratic county clerks are in collusion on this? I don’t think so. But I think there are a lot of people who vilely hate President Bush and they believe that doing anything to keep him from office is justified,” Graves said, adding, “And you have these organizers that are paid by the 527 that are part of these people.”
New Mexico Democratic Party spokesman Matt Farrauto said that if there is fraud, “it should be investigated and [prosecuted],” but he strongly criticized Republicans for hinting at voter fraud because, he said, the GOP is losing the registration battle.
“Democrats would prefer that [Republican] constitutional officers and elected county clerks do their work, rather than insinuating that thousands of New Mexicans are engaged in fraud,” Farrauto said, adding that if there were evidence of voter fraud, Republicans would seek legal action and not just air their grievances in public.
Using the identity of another person to cast a vote is a felony and can be punished with up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
In September, U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, a Bush appointee based in Albuquerque, announced the formation of an election-fraud task force aimed at collecting and investigating claims of voter fraud. “New Mexicans deserve to have a fair election.
This task force will vigorously enforce all election laws and [ensure] that the right to vote is absolutely protected,” Iglesias said at the time.
This never happened in 2000. I get a bad feeling that the 2004 election will end up in court.
WTFII...
Republicans want 100% voter ID; Democrats want 0% ID.
That's because Republicans want Americans to vote, whereas the Democrats want illegals to vote.
Photo ID should be required for every vote cast - for starters.
Well, let's be sure and sit around and watch this happen. We accept it as their "strategy". No one is punished in any way that deters it in the future. It's time to freak out and kick their a** when they try and screw with our election.
But what happens when they all get Driver's licenses, without ss# in some states. ID does not equal legal.
Uhmm. wasn't that what Mr. Graves just said?
I'd be OK with the voter registration push if it didn't have the absentee ballot in the same bundle. We in Southern Ohio have seen more ACT workers than registered voters. I'd ask who pays their bills except I know it's Soros.
I don't care what they do in state or local elections, but in order to vote in a federal election, I think ID must be required.
HAVANA, Oct. 19, 2004 -- A multitude of unlikely volunteers is working the phones for Sen. John Kerry in the swing state of Florida. His campaign is unaware of the support, as the volunteers do not live in the United States, but in Communist-run Cuba.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1250398/posts
Sorry, fellow Freepers. I live in NM and am painfully aware of the voter fraud that has existed here for decades. It is impossible for a Republican to win any race in the northern part of the state, period. A statewide election requires at least a five percent vote advantage to eek out a victory due to mysterious votes in the north and in the Las Cruces area. We are, unfortuneately, a banana republic.
Oh OK. My bad. I never pay attention in New Mexico when it comes to politics.
Right, but the more things people have to do to pull of something illegal, the more chances there are for them to get caught.
No big deal. Most people don't even know we are a state. When I told folks at my HS in VA that I was going to college at the University of New Mexico, they all asked (teachers included) "Why are you going to college in a foriegn country?".
With a political system like we have in this state, no wonder everyone thinks we are part of Central America!
Bill Redmond (and long before him, Manuel Lujan) did pretty well in the north. Of couse, the Redmond didn't get much monetary suppoft against Udall. (Redmond was leading in the polls until Friday before the election.)
I have heard some comments about Republicans trying to steal the election by manipulating the voting machines. I think the main problem will be more "found votes" for Kerry, if necessry.
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