{"id":2841,"date":"2008-02-06T04:05:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-06T10:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/02\/new-mexico-comes-down-to-provisional-ballots\/"},"modified":"2008-02-06T04:05:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-06T10:05:00","slug":"new-mexico-comes-down-to-provisional-ballots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/02\/new-mexico-comes-down-to-provisional-ballots\/","title":{"rendered":"New Mexico comes down to provisional ballots"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>New Mexicans hoping to wake up this morning and find out whether Hillary Clinton<\/a> or Barack Obama<\/a> won New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> will be disappointed to learn that the contest will remain unresolved until thousands of provisional ballots are dealt with later today. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the latest news on an election day (that has carried over into the next day) that was blessed with record turnout and plagued by problems.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

The state Democratic Party\u2019s Web site<\/a>, which was supposed to be the official bearer of election results, hasn\u2019t been updated since 11:56 p.m. on Tuesday and doesn\u2019t include results from several counties, including the state\u2019s two largest, Bernalillo and Do\u00f1a Ana. It\u2019s a good thing that Albuquerque<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> television stations have more updated numbers.<\/p>\n

\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

As it stands, Clinton<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> has a 117-vote advantage out of 131,573 ballots cast. She has 65,845 votes to Obama\u2019s 65,728 with 98 percent of precincts reporting. There are some 16,000 provisional ballots yet to be considered \u2013 a process that will begin at 9 a.m. today.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Not all of those ballots will be counted, because some won\u2019t be from registered Democrats who met the requirements to vote in Tuesday\u2019s caucus. But it\u2019s safe to say provisional ballots will determine which candidate wins New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\n

\n

The winner will automatically receive nine delegates. The other 17 up for grabs on Tuesday are divided proportionately based on the vote in each congressional district.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Good news, bad news<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

New Mexico Democrats turned out in record numbers on Tuesday. In 2004, 105,000 cast ballots in the Democratic caucus. That\u2019s the good news.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

But there\u2019s bad news. Some mistakes, a lack of funding and Mother Nature all led to some big problems.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In 2004, the caucus was well-funded, but other priorities this year (such as the governor\u2019s presidential campaign) led to fundraising efforts being focused elsewhere, several Democratic Party insiders told me on Tuesday night. That made it difficult for the party to put together a sophisticated operation that would have few problems.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

But the problem wasn\u2019t only funding. State party Chair Brian Col\u00f3n vastly underestimated turnout for the caucus last month, saying he expected 30,000 to 40,000 Democrats to vote on Tuesday. The party eventually prepared for 150,000 voters \u2013 distributing that many ballots to polling places and having a few thousand extras in reserve \u2013 but that didn\u2019t prevent problems from happening.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Most glaring was the fact that there was only one polling place in Rio Rancho, the state\u2019s third largest city. It had a population of almost 72,000 in 2006. By contrast, Las Cruces<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, which had a population of 86,000 in 2006, had 11 polling places. Even Las Vegas<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, with its population of about 15,000, had two polling places.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Thousands stood in line in Rio Rancho. By 9 p.m. those who were in the back of the line when the polls had closed two hours earlier were still waiting to vote.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Others gave up and left.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Though the lines weren\u2019t that long anywhere else, turnout was very heavy around the state. There was a long line at Valley View Elementary in Las Cruces<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, where I saw two people leave without voting because they didn\u2019t want to wait.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In addition, polling places around the state ran out of ballots. At least 20,000 emergency ballots were printed on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Only in New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Getting out information about the results was a similarly problematic endeavor for the state party.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

To avoid influencing the people still waiting to vote in Rio Rancho, the party didn\u2019t begin releasing results until nearly 10 p.m. But the party\u2019s Web site wasn\u2019t updated as often as results were being given to the Albuquerque<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> media. That may only matter to people in Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename> \u2013 the only county in the state that doesn\u2019t get Albuquerque<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> television \u2013 but the party\u2019s inability to get out results through its own statewide system in a timely manner made some Democrats in the second-largest county feel like the stepchildren of the party.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The vote total for Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename> \u2013 5,330 votes for Clinton<\/st1:city> and 4,113 votes for Obama \u2013 was announced on Albuquerque<\/st1:city> television before it was announced in any way that would reach most Democratic voters in Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

On top of all those issues, party officials had to deal with an amazingly bad storm that dumped 33 inches of snow on parts of Northern New Mexico<\/st1:place>. It appears that higher numbers of provisional ballots were cast in areas affected by the storm.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

That all added up to most of you going to sleep hours ago without knowing who won. I\u2019m also giving up and going to sleep. We\u2019ll sort this out later today.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, winners had been declared as of a couple of hours ago in every other Democratic and Republican caucus and primary \u2013 42 in all \u2013 that was held on Tuesday. Why is it that every other state can get this done in a timely manner? Meanwhile, we\u2019re left with the phrase uttered so often in this state:<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cOnly in New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\n

A prior version of this posting incorrectly stated that all 26 delegates up for grabs on Tuesday would be divided proportionately based on the vote. It also had an incorrect vote total for Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Mexicans hoping to wake up this morning and find out whether Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama won New Mexico will be disappointed to learn that the contest will remain unresolved until thousands of provisional ballots are dealt with later today. That\u2019s the latest news on an election day (that has carried over into the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841","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=2841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}