{"id":17962,"date":"2010-05-30T23:13:29","date_gmt":"2010-05-31T05:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=17962"},"modified":"2010-06-01T00:45:09","modified_gmt":"2010-06-01T06:45:09","slug":"many-complaints-won%e2%80%99t-be-resolved-before-tuesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/05\/many-complaints-won%e2%80%99t-be-resolved-before-tuesday\/","title":{"rendered":"Many complaints won\u2019t be resolved before Tuesday"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The Roundhouse in Santa Fe (Photo by Peter St. Cyr)<\/p><\/div>\n

Many complaints of potential violations of state election law in primary races won\u2019t be resolved before voters go to the polls on Tuesday, according to State Elections Director Don Francisco Trujillo II<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There are two reasons: The Secretary of State\u2019s Office operates under a policy that slows investigations down to ensure they\u2019re thorough. In addition, the office doesn\u2019t have the staff to quickly sort through complaints.<\/p>\n

There are currently about 30 pending complaints related to Tuesday\u2019s primary and the municipal elections that were held in March, Trujillo said. While he acknowledged that candidates have a \u201chigh expectation\u201d of getting a resolution before the election, he said, \u201cour protocol isn\u2019t one that resolves issues immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the Secretary of State\u2019s Office receives a complaint, a staffer begins gathering related materials. Once that\u2019s done, the complaint is sent out to all involved. The accused has 10 days to respond before the secretary of state will begin the process of issuing a determination.<\/p>\n

The policy, which you can find here<\/a>, is created by the office, not mandated under state statute.<\/p>\n

The process is further slowed by the fact that the office has one staffer assigned to investigate complaints, Trujillo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have one person, yes, it can be overwhelming,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

District 5 PRC race<\/h3>\n

District 5 Public Regulation Commission candidate Kent Evans<\/a>, a Republican, said he\u2019s frustrated by the system. Tony Schaefer, a former PRC member who is helping his campaign, has filed a complaint<\/a> alleging that one of Evans\u2019 primary opponents, Jamie Estrada<\/a>, has left some campaign expenses off his finance reports.<\/p>\n

Evans said the lack of timely response to complaints lets candidates know they won\u2019t be held accountable.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you know that they don\u2019t do anything and that they can\u2019t investigate any of these things, you can do anything you want to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And while Evans added that it is \u201cunderstandable\u201d that the secretary of state intentionally slows the process to ensure it is done properly, he also said the office could speed up response to complaints if it had more resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can help them get the resources to do what they need to do to have everybody follow the rules, it would be great,\u201d Evans said.<\/p>\n

Estrada, who maintains that he\u2019s reported expenses as state law requires, said he understands the secretary of state\u2019s position.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they\u2019re slowing down the process to make sure the interests of voters are protected, then that\u2019s something I would support,\u201d Estrada said. \u201cThis is not about using the process in order for candidates to try to have an advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Better to be accurate\u2019<\/h3>\n

Trujillo said he understands that those involved in complaints want them resolved quickly, but his office\u2019s policy is similar to those of other agencies and was developed with the help of legal counsel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s better to be accurate and to do a thorough investigation than to try and rush on something,\u201d Trujillo said.<\/p>\n

In many instances the allegations are serious. Some of the pending complaints from March municipal races relate to whether candidates for mayor actually lived in the cities in which they ran. A pending complaint in Raton involves people who allegedly voted even though they weren\u2019t eligible.<\/p>\n

On top of the pending complaints from the municipal and primary elections, the office is sorting through primary candidates\u2019 use of the new campaign finance information system<\/a>, trying to determine whether people who didn\u2019t file finance reports by required deadlines intentionally disregarded the requirement or tried but failed to comply with the new system.<\/p>\n

The focus is educational, rather than punitive, Trujillo said, but those who fail to file reports even after being contacted and offered help could be fined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many complaints of potential violations of state election law in primary races won\u2019t be resolved before voters go to the polls on Tuesday, State Elections Director Don Francisco Trujillo II said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[108,107],"class_list":["post-17962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}