Posted on 11/04/2004 3:00:59 PM PST by timbuck2
New Mexico's 33 county clerks are required to submit their complete vote totals including provisional and absentee votes to the Secretary of State's Office by Nov. 12, Ortega said... State officials are to present their final canvass, or vote count, to the state canvassing board by Nov. 23, Ortega said. Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera said Wednesday she wants to count the provisional ballots soon. "I'm making it a priority to count the provisional ballots right away," Herrera said. About 13,000 provisional ballots awaited counting in Bernalillo County, Herrera said. There are three kinds of ballots to be counted within the 13,000 total...
Provisional ballots: These are paper ballots given to voters who show up at the wrong precinct or don't have the right kind of identification when they come to vote in person, for example. Total: About 8,550.
Provisional absentee ballots: These are absentee ballots where the voter was required to show identification. Diaz said election workers do not know whether these people satisfied the identification requirement or not. (Only people who registered to vote by mail, and are voting for the first time in the county in which they registered, must show identification.) Total: 2,640...
Partisan lawyers watched the vote counting process closely on Wednesday. "Provisional voting is to ensure that voters can cast their ballots in a new legal environment," said Jim Noel, a Democratic lawyer. "It's to make sure people aren't disenfranchised. . . I'm talking about people who are entitled to vote eligible voters." A Republican lawyer says the majority of "garden variety" provisional ballots often are invalidated. "Typically the vast majority of them are bounced," said Joe Thompson, a Republican lawyer. "It's a very, very high standard, and the invalidation rate of those is well over 50 percent by any analysis."
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
btt
Maybe this is the year that NM can finally be shown for the cheating that goes on there. When Richardson came out about 1:30 Weds morning with 20,000+ votes, when NM was showing 101 & 103% precincts reporting, it was blatant.
How come CNN has Bush leading 370,706 to 362,340 for a total vote cast between the two of 733,046 and the NM site shows a total of 688,216 between the two candidates?
updated totals as of 7:21 ET
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/NM/P/00/index.html
BTTT
Writing new federal standards and SCOTUS appointments are the two most important issues (after nat'l security) for the new congress to tackle.
Does anybody disagree? If not, let's start lobbying to get this done. No better time than now.
-T
The SOS numbers are the only ones that count in the end.
Are we awake now? Let's not go soft because we won one election. New Mexico is being stolen right now and Iowa and Ohio could be next. Think it is out of the question? You do not think the propaganda war that the Dems will wage after manipulating the provisional ballot totals in OH will not make FL look like peanuts? I am not being an alarmist here. Just watch it unfold in the next few weeks. Mark my words. Call your representatives and tell them to draft new federal legislation.
-T
Attn: Powers that be at Free Republic!
Shouldn't this thread be highlighted at this point?
-T
Yep, but we are still quite a bit away from the end here in NM. Just want to make sure the end result is the correct one, whether we like it or not.
(Update: Bush losing lead)
That'll get their attention.
And have them put it in Front Page, not breaking news -- I'm not ready to go bonkers over this just yet.
I've been following this story closely since I grew up in NM. Richarson seems pretty confident that NM is Kerry's.
I hope the GOP is staying on top of this.
Thanks for this thread. I've been concerned about this for a couple of days now. Richardson will steal this if possible.
I have no doubt they are. I remember a couple of elections ago, Pete himself went down to the Bernalillo County clerks office to raise hell about all the jockeying that was going on with vote totals (and he wasn't running!!). No, NM Pubbies have been burned too often and I'm sure they will do their best to see that it is fair.
1) Clear the voter lists every two years.
2) Photo ID with proof of residency required to re-register.
3) Photo ID with validated signature at voting site
4) Indelible ink (that is indelible) for thumbrints on election day - thank you Afghanistan for the idea!
Suggestions welcome! ;-)
Mini-crisis over. The SOS site has now been updated to generally agree with the Journal/AP numbers.
I completely agree. It is a national election; national laws governing it.
And, on top of that, this early voting & provisional ballots have to go. Sorry, but if you cannot get registered on time, too bad. And if you move, get an absentee ballot.
And, if I have to show my DL to get a check cashed and in some banks now, submit a thumbprint; no problem showing an ID to vote.
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