{"id":4452,"date":"2009-04-09T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-09T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/04\/clerk-may-challenge-herrera-in-2010-primary\/"},"modified":"2009-04-09T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-09T16:00:00","slug":"clerk-may-challenge-herrera-in-2010-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/04\/clerk-may-challenge-herrera-in-2010-primary\/","title":{"rendered":"Clerk may challenge Herrera in 2010 primary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018Mismanagement\u2019 has Santa Fe County Clerk Valerie Espinosa and others frustrated, so Espinosa may try to unseat the first-term secretary of state<\/span><\/p>\n

Frustration with Mary Herrera\u2019s<\/a> management of the secretary of state\u2019s office has Santa Fe County Clerk Valerie Espinosa<\/a> saying she is seriously considering challenging Herrera in the Democratic primary next year.<\/p>\n

Espinosa\u2019s is a frustration shared by a number of county clerks throughout the state.<\/p>\n

<\/span>\u201cThe mismanagement in that office has reached historic proportions,\u201d Espinosa said in an interview. \u201cThere are no contracts for voting machine maintenance. Online campaign reporting is an abysmal failure. The only saving grace in the general election was that it was not close; otherwise, the lack of administrative rules and procedures would have resulted in costly litigation and clouded the results.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Espinosa said she hasn\u2019t made a final decision on whether to challenge Herrera but will do so in the coming months. She said she is being urged by many other county clerks and others who know about the problems, including state legislators, to run.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Secretary of State spokesman James Flores took issue with Espinosa\u2019s complaints, saying Herrera\u2019s office has accomplished \u201cmany things with little or no funding,\u201d and has \u201cissued more administrative rules and procedures than any past administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

As evidence of the good work Herrera\u2019s office is doing, Flores cited an editorial<\/a> that ran in the Albuquerque Journal shortly after the November election praising Herrera and county clerks for a successful effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cHard work, innovative thinking and proactive initiatives will continue to be the norm in her administration,\u201d Flores said.<\/p>\n

But Espinosa isn\u2019t the only one who sees problems. Sheryl Nichols, the deputy clerk in Los Alamos County and president of the state clerk\u2019s association, said there are \u201clots of issues that need to be addressed\u201d in Herrera\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we should be further along than we are, although we\u2019ve been working very hard to remedy these situations,\u201d Nichols said.<\/p>\n

Some other clerks and clerk employees from around the state also expressed concern about the operation of the secretary of state\u2019s office, though none would speak for the record because they have to work with all involved.<\/p>\n

Asked if Espinosa should challenge Herrera in a primary, Nichols said, \u201ccompetition is an excellent catalyst for the best candidate for the state.\u201d She added that Espinosa is an intelligent clerk who does a good job of running her office and lobbying the Legislature.<\/p>\n

Herrera, a former Bernalillo County clerk, is in her first term as secretary of state.<\/p>\n

The issues<\/span><\/p>\n

Among the problems Espinosa listed with the secretary of state\u2019s office is a long-standing dispute over whether the state or counties own and are responsible for repairs and upgrades to voting machines. The state purchased them several years ago, then tried to push the upkeep costs on the counties, which rejected that proposition, saying they weren\u2019t involved in the decision to buy the machines in the first place.<\/p>\n

The fight recently culminated with the secretary of state canceling the contracts<\/a> for software and firmware maintenance and support for the machines, which could leave the state and counties less prepared for problems that might arise during elections.<\/p>\n

But Flores said the contract was canceled only because the Legislature failed to approve this year a bill that would have provided funding for future maintenance. He pointed out that all voting machines in the state were under maintenance warranty for the 2008 election.<\/p>\n

As for the issue with the state\u2019s online campaign-reporting system<\/a>, Herrera pledged when running for office in 2006 to improve the arcane and cumbersome method of making the information available to the public. Espinosa pointed out that it has not happened.<\/p>\n

Flores said the office is \u201cin the process\u201d of creating a new system \u201cin-house\u2026 without adequate funding.\u201d He called that \u201cvery proactive on the part of this administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Espinosa also cited the sending out of thousands of mailers to educate people about where and how to vote before last year\u2019s general election that contained erroneous information<\/a>. Espinosa said Herrera, instead of apologizing for a mistake that affected 97,000 voters in Santa Fe County, blamed Espinosa in a TV interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that I want to start a public battle, but she\u2019s just always blaming someone else for her errors,\u201d Espinosa said.<\/p>\n

And, citing the fact that Herrera was recently elected president of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials<\/a>, Espinosa said Herrera is \u201coff doing that\u201d when she should instead be in the office fixing problems.<\/p>\n

\u2018These things are haunting us\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

While Espinosa, a former employee of the secretary of state\u2019s office, is serious about the prospect of running next year, she\u2019s leaving the door open to instead running when Herrera is term-limited from running again in five years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will run someday, and I can wait until she\u2019s done\u2026 but some of these things are haunting us,\u201d Espinosa said of the problems in Herrera\u2019s office. \u201cI think that I could challenge her and maybe even beat her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTruthfully, I have the interest in doing it and I can be assertive when it comes to campaigning and proving myself,\u201d Espinosa said.<\/p>\n

Even before next year\u2019s election, Nichols says she\u2019s hoping for progress on a number of issues in the secretary of state\u2019s office. She mentioned Herrera\u2019s newly hired elections director — Santa Fe attorney A.J. Salazar<\/a>, who previously worked for the House speaker and the Santa Fe County district attorney.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what his qualifications are to hold this position, but I look forward to meeting with him and fleshing out what he can do to benefit the state of New Mexico,\u201d Nichols said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we have a huge, tremendous amount of obstacles and challenges in this state considering the voting systems, the monopoly that\u2019s been created dealing with one vendor (on the voting machines), and all that needs to be addressed, and so this is a huge undertaking for that office,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m hoping that guy comes with some kind of knowledge so he can get this ball rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Mismanagement\u2019 has Santa Fe County Clerk Valerie Espinosa and others frustrated, so Espinosa may try to unseat the first-term secretary of state Frustration with Mary Herrera\u2019s management of the secretary of state\u2019s office has Santa Fe County Clerk Valerie Espinosa saying she is seriously considering challenging Herrera in the Democratic primary next year. Espinosa\u2019s 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-4452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452","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=4452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}