Among those critics is former Attorney General Patricia Madrid<\/a>, who said problems with the caucus have resulted in \u201ca tremendous black eye for Democrats in this state.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe have conducted an election that doesn\u2019t have the integrity and the confidence of the voters,\u201d said \u201cThe party and the campaigns are focused on accuracy,\u201d Col\u00f3n said.<\/p>\n The current results \u2013 which account for all but the provisional ballots \u2013 have What\u2019s certain is that New Mexico Democrats were fairly evenly divided between Clinton and Obama \u2013 which made the problems with the caucus even more glaring.<\/p>\n The party was overwhelmed by the more than 153,000 people who cast ballots on Tuesday. It ran out of ballots at some locations, had only one polling place and a long line in Rio Rancho and had trouble reporting accurate and current results on its Web site<\/a> on Tuesday evening and Wednesday. Some Democrats had to wait hours to vote. Others gave up and left.<\/p>\n In addition, final results and a declared winner are still several days away, while every other contest held around the nation on Tuesday had a declared winner by early Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n Criticism is harsh and widespread<\/span><\/p>\n Criticism has been harsh and widespread, and has come from people and organizations including The Albuquerque Tribune<\/a>, Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> and Albuquerque Mayor Martin Ch\u00e1vez<\/a>. Col\u00f3n has taken responsibility.<\/p>\n But \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have all the checks and balances and the years of experience of a proper election,\u201d \u201cIt seems to me it\u2019s the responsibility of the governor and the other officials who got this through to properly fund it and make sure it\u2019s well-run,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m very concerned that the election was not conducted properly and fairly.\u201d<\/p>\n At stake are 26 of A lot of provisional ballots<\/span><\/p>\n One lingering question from Tuesday\u2019s caucus is why so many people \u2013 about 11 percent \u2013 ended up voting on provisional ballots. That high percentage was one of the causes of the chaos that engulfed the process on Tuesday.<\/p>\n James Flores, spokesman for the Secretary of State, said his office provided the voter list used by the Democratic Party, and he is confident in the list\u2019s accuracy.<\/p>\n So is Col\u00f3n, who said he suspects that the main cause of the high number of provisional ballots was the consolidation of people\u2019s normal polling places and the fact that different sites were used in some cases than those used during government elections. He said many, if not most, Democrats were assigned to vote at different locations than they do in most elections.<\/p>\n Another reason some people vote on provisional ballots, he said, is that they show up to vote even though, for whatever reason, they aren\u2019t eligible. People could also cast provisional ballots if they requested absentee ballots but never received them or didn\u2019t mail them back to the party before Tuesday.<\/p>\n Col\u00f3n said the sorting of the provisional ballots, which include affidavits, will provide more information about why so many were cast.<\/p>\n A note about why this article has been changed:<\/p>\n \n This article originally reported that the state party had decided to recount the 136,000 regular ballots that were cast on Tuesday, but that is not the case, Col\u00f3n says. Here\u2019s how it happened:<\/p>\n Two \n \n During my interview with Col\u00f3n today, I mentioned that I had seen the television stations\u2019 articles and understood there would be a recount. What I heard him say in reply, and recorded in my notes, was that the party and both campaigns had agreed to that to ensure an accurate tally.<\/p>\n He called later, after this article was originally published, to say there is no recount. The party is now in the process of scanning the ballots, which will again tally the votes that have already been counted by hand, but that is part of the process of the original count, not a recount. He said he didn\u2019t intend to lead any reporter to believe there was a recount.<\/p>\n Col\u00f3n is under a tremendous amount of stress and must be exhausted. I\u2019m not interested in pointing fingers at anyone. I\u2019m just interested in reporting accurate information. That\u2019s why I rewrote this article. But I also had a duty to explain to you why I changed it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (This article has been updated to correct apparently inaccurate information. Please see the note at the end of the article for an explanation.) The Democratic Party of New Mexico wants to assure the state that the results from Tuesday\u2019s caucus will be trustworthy, but some believe the process is fatally tainted. Among those critics is […]<\/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-2847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2847","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=2847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2847\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_IabUCQmoheQ\/R6u3hV9XMWI\/AAAAAAAAE38\/nR9aY0hJytE\/s1600-h\/Madrid,+Patricia.jpg\")
<\/a>The Democratic Party of New Mexico<\/a> wants to assure the state that the results from Tuesday\u2019s caucus will be trustworthy, but some believe the process is fatally tainted.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_IabUCQmoheQ\/R6u3hl9XMXI\/AAAAAAAAE4E\/-cE7VdrZrkU\/s200\/Colon,+Brian.jpg\")
<\/a>State party Chair Brian Col\u00f3n, who apologized on Wednesday for the problems with the caucus, said he believes the results will be trustworthy. He noted that the party and the campaigns of Obama and Hillary Clinton<\/a> spent more than a day working out a process for ensuring some 17,000 provisional ballots are counted fairly and consistently.<\/p>\n