New Mexico State News

Vol. 2, No. 1--Pre-Summit, January 2005

The New Mexico Recount: Status as of January 8, 2005

2084 phantom votes.
21,800 undervotes for President.
The majority of undervotes are from 2 specific voting machines in heavily Hispanic and Native American counties.
No presidential votes recorded for 206 military absentee ballots in one county.
Substantially different standards used for provisional ballots in different counties. In one precinct, all Republican voter Absentee Ballots were counted and none for Democratic voters. In one county, 2000 phantom votes for County Clerk in one precinct.

Raise some questions? You bet!

Green Party Presidential Candidate David Cobb, and Libertarian Candidate Michael Badnarik have requested a recount. The State Canvassing Board (members are Governor Bill Richardson, Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Jiron and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Petra Maes--all Democrats) required the candidates to come up with $1,400,000 to initiate the recount.--$1,400,000 in 48 hours!

Help America Recount, a national 527 political organization, provided the legal resources to take the issue to State District Court where the request was denied. The 'Writ of Mandamus' (a legal process which requires an elected official to perform his duties) was then taken to the State Supreme Court. The request was denied.

Our remaining legal avenue was to then to appeal the District Court decision to the New Mexico State of Appeals. This process will take weeks, if not months.

The silver lining is that this provides us the opportunity to educate the public and build pressure for the Governor to order the recount. An important point: at this time we are asking for the "10% Solution." We want to select 10% of the precincts in the state and conduct a recount on those precincts. There has been extraordinary research done on the statistical data and on the incident reports from before, on and after Election Day. We can pinpoint the problems at the precinct level.

As of this date, the Governor has refused to agree to the 10% solution. The Governor has national political ambitions. We need people from other states to make phone calls to the Governor of New Mexico. His phone number is (505) 476-2200.

Our legislative session begins January 18, 2005. We have an election reform legislative package prepared, which will be introduced in this session. Copies of the proposal are available on request.

Thank you for your support. Phone calls are the #1 priority, but we also need funds to organize statewide for successful action in the legislature. If there are other ways you might be able help, please

Mitch Buszek
NM State Coordinator
Recount New Mexico

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