{"id":2869,"date":"2008-02-13T13:48:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-13T19:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/02\/elections-should-be-run-by-governments\/"},"modified":"2008-02-13T13:48:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-13T19:48:00","slug":"elections-should-be-run-by-governments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/02\/elections-should-be-run-by-governments\/","title":{"rendered":"Elections should be run by governments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elections should be run by governments. The debacle that was last week\u2019s New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:State> Democratic caucus makes that clear.<\/p>\n

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

It\u2019s not the record voter turnout and the resulting long lines that bother me. That\u2019s a great problem to have. What calls into question the integrity of the vote is the Democratic Party of New Mexico\u2019s<\/a> difficulty in responding to the high voter turnout, the weak protection for the ballots and the fact that a party-run caucus isn\u2019t subject to state election law.<\/p>\n

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

As it stands, Hillary Clinton<\/a> has a 1,074-vote lead in New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:State>, with 68,084 votes to Barack Obama\u2019s<\/a> 67,010 votes, but more than 17,000 provisional ballots are still being considered. Final results aren\u2019t expected until Friday \u2013 10 days after Democrats voted.<\/p>\n

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

County clerks and the secretary of state have the staffers and equipment to prepare for and respond to high voter turnout. The party, on the other hand, was underfunded and, in some places, short on volunteers, so it was overwhelmed, especially at polling places in the Albuquerque area, when 153,000 people showed up to vote statewide. At some polling places, ballots had to be photocopied.<\/p>\n

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

Government-run elections have security measures in place, including state police officers to guard ballot boxes. The party\u2019s system, on the other hand, was woefully inadequate. After polling-location volunteers counted ballots, managers called in the results to the state party. In Rio<\/st1:PlaceName> Arriba<\/st1:PlaceName> County<\/st1:PlaceType><\/st1:place> and some other places, the ballots then spent the night in the privacy of the managers\u2019 homes.<\/p>\n

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

The ballots were recounted the next day, when the state party recovered them, to ensure the number the polling manager gave over the phone matched the ballots in the box. But that\u2019s a pretty weak check. It wouldn\u2019t take much for a rogue manager to cheat.<\/p>\n

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

To top it off, because party-run caucuses aren\u2019t subject to state elections law, there would be no serious penalty for cheating.<\/p>\n

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

The Democratic presidential candidates asked New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:State> voters to get fired up. A record number did that last week, with many putting aside their cynicism to vote for the first time in years or for the first time ever. Since Tuesday, several have told me they\u2019re discouraged because, with all the problems, they aren\u2019t certain their votes will be counted.<\/p>\n

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

Some sound more jaded than they were before they decided to put aside their cynicism and vote last week.<\/p>\n

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

Lt. Gov. Diane Denish<\/a> wrote last week in an e-mail to supporters that the high turnout \u201cproves democracy is alive and well \u2013 and that it only thrives when people are willing to do their part.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

This is certainly not democracy thriving. There was a wave of increased interest, but this negative experience could further jade many of the cynics who hadn\u2019t voted in a long time before Tuesday, and could make them less likely to vote next time. In the end, the caucus was a disservice to the state\u2019s Democrats.<\/p>\n

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

That\u2019s not the fault of the caucus volunteers, who did their best in a system that was bound to crumble under such impressive turnout. They should be commended for volunteering their time to help democracy work.<\/p>\n

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

But the state has done a lot to reform its government elections process in recent years, including switching to paper ballots. Democrats should let state and county elections professionals run their primaries. Though some of those professionals don\u2019t always do the best job of ensuring elections have integrity, on the whole, they do much better than this.<\/p>\n

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

A version of this article was published today in the Albuquerque Tribune<\/a> and on the Diary of a Mad Voter<\/a> blog published by the Denver Post\u2019s Politics West<\/a> and the independent Web site NewWest.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elections should be run by governments. The debacle that was last week\u2019s New Mexico Democratic caucus makes that clear. It\u2019s not the record voter turnout and the resulting long lines that bother me. That\u2019s a great problem to have. What calls into question the integrity of the vote is the Democratic Party of New Mexico\u2019s […]<\/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-2869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2869","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=2869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}