Commissioners ask guv to seek election-law changes

Doña Ana County commissioners are asking Gov. Bill Richardson to push for a change in the state’s voter identification law during the 2008 legislative session because they say the current law will create new problems and disenfranchise voters.

In the last general election, voters could provide an identification card such as a driver’s license to vote, or they could verbally provide information that included a “unique identifier” – the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.

However, during this year’s legislative session, that changed. Under the new law, approved by lawmakers and the governor this year, instead of using the last four digits of a Social Security number as a unique identifier, voters will instead be assigned a randomly generated, eight-digit combination of numbers, letters and other characters.

The new law also outlaws the use of dates of birth and Social Security numbers for voting, though they can still be used for voter registration.

After hearing from the head of the county elections bureau and an attorney who works on voter issues for the county Democratic Party, commissioners voted 5-0 to approve a resolution asking Richardson to “call upon the 2008 Legislature to pass simple, clear and comprehensive changes to the New Mexico Election Code, which will protect the rights of all registered voters to vote at polls, by absentee ballot or by provisional ballot.”

During 30-day sessions, such policy changes can only be deliberated if the governor agrees to allow it.

Attorney Peter Ossorio and Elections Bureau head Lynn Ellins told commissioners that the new law is certain to lead to all sorts of problems with Election Day, absentee and provisional voting:

• On Election Day, Ellins anticipates a number of people showing up to vote without having the card that includes their randomly generated identifier in hand. The identifier will be difficult to memorize, and people won’t be able to call and get the number, so they’ll have to pick it up in person from the county Bureau of Elections and then return to their polling place to vote. That’s certain to create a backlog and make voting more difficult, both said.

• Those who travel away from New Mexico and need to vote absentee, if they forget their unique identifiers, won’t be able to vote, both men said, because they’ll have no way to obtain the number from the Bureau of Elections.

• Though the new law requires the use of the random identifier and outlaws the use of dates of birth and Social Security numbers for voting, the Legislature did not change a separate law requiring that those who fill out provisional ballots include birth dates and Social Security numbers, so the laws are conflicting. That could lead to a legal challenge. In addition, Ellins said, figuring out whether to accept provisional ballots using the random numbers will take significantly longer than when using Social Security numbers, and the ballots are sometimes the deciding votes that delay final election results, so there’s always pressure to count them as quickly as possible.

Elections staffs in Bernalillo and Santa Fe counties are working with the office in Doña Ana County to push for changes, Ellins said. Ossorio said changes are necessary and, if they’re not made during the 2008 session, come June 2008 “there’s going to be an election meltdown.”

Update, Dec. 12 at 8:30 a.m.

I neglected to report on Tuesday that the resolution was sponsored by Commissioner Bill McCamley. In a news release from his congressional campaign, he called the new requirement of a randomly generated identifier “a very bad idea.”

“It could lead to the disenfranchisement of a large number of New Mexico voters, particularly elderly voters, low-income voters and New Mexicans serving in the military who often vote by absentee ballot,” he said. “We cannot allow this to happen.”