Posted on 11/11/2004 3:28:44 PM PST by CedarDave
Less than 12 hours after the laborious examination of provisional ballots from the Nov. 2 election was done, Bernalillo County's protracted vote-counting process hit another obstacle: the computer system crashed. That meant election workers lost valuable time, with the deadline for finishing the count just more than a day away.
The Veterans Day holiday threw another problem into the mix, making it difficult for election officials to find computer technicians. "The network has been down all morning. I can't input results into the computer," Elections Bureau Administrator Jaime Diaz said. "It means time. We're losing hours in the day. "It's amazing," he said. The system was restored about 11:40 a.m., meaning workers lost about four hours of canvassing time. "That's time that we'll have to make up for between now and tomorrow," Diaz said.
The deadline to finish the canvass is midnight Friday. That's when results must be certified by the county's Canvassing Board, which is made up of the County Commission. A Bernalillo County Commission meeting is - optimistically - already scheduled at 3:30 p.m. Friday, 8 hours before the deadline, and County Clerk Mary Herrera had hoped to present the final vote count then.
About 100 election workers started today at 6:30 a.m., hand-tallying the troublesome provisional ballots. The computer system crashed about 7:45 a.m., but workers continued keeping a count and began entering the data when the system returned to operation. In the Bernalillo County Voting Machine Warehouse at the start of the day, workers had hit the homestretch, with the sorting of questionable ballots finally behind them.
The protracted and troublesome business of checking provisional and in-lieu-of ballots ended Wednesday night, with more than half the 12,000 possible votes being rejected, Herrera said. Most of the rejected ballots - about 6,600 cast by voters who weren't on the county's election rolls but thought they should be - were thrown out because those voters weren't in fact registered. Approximately 5,400 were found to be valid and will be added to the tally today, Herrera said. The crew also qualified 353 overseas ballots and 65 federal write-in ballots.
"Wow. That's a very high volume," Herrera said Wednesday night as she estimated the rejection rate would exceed 50 percent. "This is way over what's expected."
In addition to voter registration problems, some provisional ballots from one precinct will prompt an examination. The batch showed that all disqualified ballots were Democrat, and those that qualified were all Republican, Herrera said. She said she did not know the exact number of ballots, and she did not immediately know the precinct number.
"I'm going to do further investigation, and I'm going to meet with the presiding judge," Herrera said. "It seems really suspicious. I don't believe somebody would do that purposely. I hope not. I'm hoping it was just human error." Herrera said she does not intend to talk to the presiding judge until sometime next week. She said she did not know the name of the presiding judge. "I'm not going to worry about it. I'm not concerned about it right now. What can I do? There is not a whole lot I can do but to find out why it occurred," Herrera said. "I want to complete this canvass."
Final Cull: Bernalillo County election workers finished qualifying the last lot of ballots from the Nov. 2 election late Wednesday night. The categories of qualified ballots that will go toward a final count are (presidential votes only):
Precinct (Election Day): 109,614
Absentee: 59,919
Early voting: 81,201
Provisional and in-lieu-of: 5,417
Overseas (including military) and federal write-in: 418
Total: 256,569
Source: Bernalillo County Clerk Web site, The Associated Press
John Fund just said on FOX that New Mexico is finished. Sh&T! I was hoping that he was right.
According to John Fund 5 minutes ago (appearing on Brit Hume's Special Report)...the counting is over & Pres. Bush won by ~ 5,000 votes!!!
Are those 5,800+ ABQ ballots the only ones remaining to be counted? Or has Richardson found some additional ballots?
Um.
You see, I suspect that this Herrera person thinks that if there's a batch of provisional ballots, and some are rejected, and all the rejected ones are (D)s, this indicates something suspicious on the part of the person who rejected them.
To me, the obvious interpretation is completely the opposite: it indicates something suspicious on all those (D)s who asked for and cast provisional ballots though they were not properly registered to vote, had already voted, etc.
Looks like Bill Richardson screwed up big time.
They are getting their hopes up at Democratic Underground. "See if Kerry got 100% of the provisional votes and 150% of the absentee votes and if we challenge the census because illegal aliens were inadequately counted, we can up the electoral college votes for New Mexico and if we can prove that Diebold is just a smokescreen for Halliburton..."
The glitch is the fat guy in the Governor's mansion.
---especiallly if he was paid in advance--
Ping.
That's Bernalillo County only. Probably about the same number or less for the rest of the state.
I heard him say he had just talked to officials in NM and they said counting was done - Bush won by 5000
I heard that as well, it sounded like a done deal to me!
Exactly.
It may be over if Fund actually spoke with someone and he gave him numbers. Most of the provsionals were handcounted, so they know they numbers, they just can't enter them in the computer. Least that is my hope
Don't know where Fund is getting his numbers. The SOS office has Bush ahead by 7,414 votes with a total Bush+Kerry of 691,096.
The ABQJournal/AP has Bush up by 8,333 votes with a total B+K of 737,053 votes.
Maybe the Democratic county clerks are calling totals in to the SOS office, and since today was a holiday, maybe no one has entered total into the website (though is says is was updated within the last hour)>
Let them get their hopes up. They are done. This just means that more of the shrinks the libs are visiting for "Post Election Stress Trauma" will get some more billable hours.
BTTT
If I wasn't clear, that's what I heard as well.
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