Citing concerns about the way last week\u2019s primary election was run and past election snafus, the Do\u00f1a Ana County Board of Commissioners plans to set up an independent, non-partisan task force to review the operations of the county elections bureau.<\/p>\n
Commissioners were scheduled at a meeting today to certify the election results. Elections head Mari Langford informed them that the canvass wasn\u2019t complete because the last information her office needed arrived from the secretary of state\u2019s office only this morning.<\/p>\n
That elicited much criticism from commissioners.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always, always, always seem to be behind everybody else,\u201d Commissioner Bill McCamley said. \u201cI don\u2019t know who\u2019s to blame. I don\u2019t know, specifically, what we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Langford responded by telling the commission that the county is not behind others. She\u2019s right, according to state Elections Director Ernie Marquez. Off the state\u2019s 33 counties, only three, small counties have submitted canvassed results to the state, and results aren\u2019t due for several more days.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy far, you guys are not late,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have not received any big counties at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Concerns were raised at the meeting about other issues. Two commissioners, Paul Curry and Kent Evans, said they were contacted by people who tried to vote last week only to find their precincts had been moved.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got a lot of calls, and a lot of problems, and a lot of moves,\u201d Evans said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commission Chairwoman Dolores Salda\u00f1a-Caviness suggested the task force.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, this is unacceptable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Though last week\u2019s election went more smoothly than some others in recent years, the county\u2019s elections bureau carries a lot of baggage. Then-County Clerk Ruben Ceballos was forced from office several years ago after being convicted of elections violations. He was given a deferred, five year sentence, so the conviction will eventually be erased from his record if he stays out of trouble.<\/p>\n
And a mathematical error in the county in 2000 resulted in George Bush mistakenly being declared early on the winner of the state\u2019s five electoral votes. Discovery of the mistake shifted the victory to Al Gore.<\/p>\n
Commissioners plan to meet again Friday to certify the election results and finalize creation of the task force.<\/p>\n
In order to be considered for appointment to the task force, residents must be registered voters in Do\u00f1a Ana County and hand deliver a letter of interest and resume to the Do\u00f1a Ana County Government Center on Motel Boulevard by noon on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Citing concerns about the way last week\u2019s primary election was run and past election snafus, the Do\u00f1a Ana County Board of Commissioners plans to set up an independent, non-partisan task force to review the operations of the county elections bureau. Commissioners were scheduled at a meeting today to certify the election results. Elections head Mari […]<\/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-286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286","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=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}