Watkins\u2019\u00a0op-ed<\/a>,\u00a0he\u00a0argues that we should spend millions of taxpayer dollars adopting a policy that will diminish Hispanics\u2019, senior citizens\u2019, Native Americans\u2019 and African-Americans\u2019 rights to vote.<\/p>\nBut to support his case he is only able to cite two \u2013\u00a0just two\u00a0\u2013 cases of voter fraud in New Mexico. (One was actually a voter registration case from 20 years ago that involved zero actual votes.) Nevertheless, for argument\u2019s sake, let\u2019s say both hold water as actual cases of voter fraud in New Mexico.<\/p>\n
Since 1992,\u00a0over 5.3 million ballots have been cast in the\u00a0State of New Mexico. Factor in the two cases on which the N.M. GOP is building its entire argument, and that comes out to an alleged fraud rate of 0.000000037 percent of ballots cast. And they had to go back 20 years just to get the percentage up that high!<\/p>\n
And considering that in both cases the perpetrators were caught, it would seem to me that the facts of Watkins\u2019 argument go to show that election law in New Mexico is already pretty good.<\/p>\n
Not much to hang your hat on there.<\/p>\n
Trying to exclude eligible voters<\/h3>\n
This is a partisan attempt to intimidate voters and a massive waste of taxpayer dollars, and Secretary Duran\u2019s inclusion of state police in the probe is a cynical attempt to hide a nasty political tactic behind a curtain of public safety and up the ante on voter intimidation.<\/p>\n
The real issue here is that both nationally and locally, the GOP knows they have to stop intimidated and disenfranchised groups from voting if they want to stand a chance in the 2012 elections.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s that simple.<\/p>\n
It should come as no surprise that the groups who are most likely to not have the proper ID required for voting \u2013 seniors, African-Americans, Native Americans and Latinos \u2013 are by-and-large traditional Democratic constituencies.<\/p>\n
Voter suppression is a tool long used by the Republicans to keep the poor, minorities and the elderly away from the polls on Election Day. Instead of encouraging wider participation \u2013 the lifeblood of any democracy \u2013 and making New Mexicans feel comfortable about voting, Republicans are trying to exclude eligible voters and fool the average New Mexican into believing that our democracy is anything but free and fair.<\/p>\n
A good use of your tax dollars?<\/h3>\n
Everyday New Mexicans are struggling. The state budget is ballooning and unemployment is way too high. But instead of proposing solutions, our governor, secretary of state and New Mexico Republicans have decided to focus on their own political future.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re trying to pull a fast one with talk of voter fraud and restrictive voter ID laws, and they\u2019re using your money to do it.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a simple question to ask in these tough economic times: Is spending millions on a voter ID law and fraud cases that go nowhere really a good use of your tax dollars?<\/p>\n
Chavez is chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Valencia County<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Secretary of State Dianna Duran and Republicans have trotted out GOP Executive Director Bryan Watkins as the most recent talking head to champion their effort to sell New Mexicans the bill of goods that our state is being overrun with systematic voter fraud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2274,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,16],"tags":[156,142,107,225],"class_list":["post-30549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-guest-columns","tag-2012-election","tag-crime","tag-roundhouse","tag-voter-fraud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30549","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\/2274"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}