{"id":317,"date":"2006-06-26T07:50:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-26T13:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/06\/former-clerk%e2%80%99s-wife-blames-politics-says-elections-problems-no-worse-here-than-in-other-counties\/"},"modified":"2006-06-26T07:50:00","modified_gmt":"2006-06-26T13:50:00","slug":"former-clerk%e2%80%99s-wife-blames-politics-says-elections-problems-no-worse-here-than-in-other-counties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/06\/former-clerk%e2%80%99s-wife-blames-politics-says-elections-problems-no-worse-here-than-in-other-counties\/","title":{"rendered":"Former clerk\u2019s wife blames politics, says elections problems no worse here than in other counties"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a letter with a bitter tone that was published Friday in the Las Cruces Bulletin, the wife of former Do\u00f1a Ana County Clerk Ruben Ceballos congratulated the commission for creating a task force to examine problems with the primary election.<\/p>\n

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

Sal Ceballos said it was \u201ccomforting\u201d to learn that the commission will appoint a task force to look into the problems, \u201crather than turn the problems over to the district attorney for prosecution, as was done when my husband was clerk.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

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

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

Sal Ceballos said problems in the clerk\u2019s office \u201cpersist\u2026 not because of the clerk\u2019s incompetence, as the commission and the district attorney pontificated in my husband\u2019s case,\u201d but instead because the office \u201cis not and has not been funded to the extent that it needs to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

After Ceballos\u2019 husband left office, Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron visited the commission to plead for more staffers in the elections bureau. The commission later added several positions.<\/p>\n

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

In addition, Ceballos wrote, there are problems true to every election in every county: poll workers who don\u2019t show up and a state elections handbook that is \u201csubject to interpretation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\u201cThe only difference is that many in Do\u00f1a<\/st1:PlaceName> Ana<\/st1:PlaceName> County<\/st1:PlaceName><\/st1:place> are so ready to criticize for political expediency,\u201d Ceballos wrote.<\/p>\n

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

She made the bold statement that the committee\u2019s work will be pointless, \u201cdue to the fact that the clerk will have to comply with new laws for the November election.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

It is true that clerks around the state, and the secretary of state\u2019s office, are struggling to keep up with the constant elections law changes being enacted by the legislature and governor.<\/p>\n

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

But the commission wants the task force to look at policies and procedures in the clerk\u2019s office that could be improved, not suggest changes that will conflict with state law. And the past problems in this county have gone far beyond those of other counties in the state. It was, after all, our mathematical error that led to George Bush being mistakenly declared the winner of the state\u2019s five electoral votes in 2000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a letter with a bitter tone that was published Friday in the Las Cruces Bulletin, the wife of former Do\u00f1a Ana County Clerk Ruben Ceballos congratulated the commission for creating a task force to examine problems with the primary election. Sal Ceballos said it was \u201ccomforting\u201d to learn that the commission will appoint a […]<\/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-317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317","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=317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}