{"id":798,"date":"2006-11-02T09:02:00","date_gmt":"2006-11-02T15:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/11\/a-third-group-would-have-bid-on-state-election-canvassing-job-but-didnt-get-response-from-sos\/"},"modified":"2006-11-02T09:02:00","modified_gmt":"2006-11-02T15:02:00","slug":"a-third-group-would-have-bid-on-state-election-canvassing-job-but-didnt-get-response-from-sos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/11\/a-third-group-would-have-bid-on-state-election-canvassing-job-but-didnt-get-response-from-sos\/","title":{"rendered":"A third group would have bid on state election canvassing job, but didn’t get response from SOS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sen. Pete Domenici has joined the chorus of Republicans upset that the state won\u2019t hire an independent auditor to canvass the Nov. 7 general election.<\/p>\n

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

The Secretary of State\u2019s Office says there isn\u2019t enough time. It claims it only received two bids, and neither met the requirements.<\/p>\n

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

But Domenici says otherwise, according to the Albuquerque Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cWhat is lacking is the political will,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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

I happen to have knowledge that there would have been at least one additional bidder, but the group didn\u2019t receive a response to several questions it asked the Secretary of State\u2019s Office as it prepared a proposal.<\/p>\n

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

The deadline for submitting questions in regards to the request for proposals was Oct. 12. Despite submitting several questions, and following up by phone more than once, the group never received a response, though the RFP required the state to respond to questions. Because it couldn\u2019t get answers to its questions, the group didn\u2019t submit a proposal before the Oct. 20 deadline.<\/p>\n

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

What\u2019s that all about? Was there some sort of miscommunication? Did the Secretary of State\u2019s Office not receive the questions for some reason? Did a response from the Secretary of State\u2019s Office get lost in the mail? Did the office\u2019s phone system have problems that caused it to not receive messages or faxes?<\/p>\n

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

Or was it, as some suspect, that the secretary of state never intended to hire an outside audit firm?<\/p>\n

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

It\u2019s hard to say, but it\u2019s easy to see why Domenici and others are suspicious.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cAll New Mexicans, whether Democrats, Republicans, members of the Green Party, independents, every last voter in New Mexico must have confidence that their votes are going to count,\u201d Domenici said. \u201cI would respectfully request that the secretary of state immediately commit to an open and transparent state canvass with the media and interested parties in attendance.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

According to the Republican Party, \u201cit has long been the tradition of the secretary of state\u2019s office to hire outside auditors to make sure the final count is as nonpartisan, open and honest as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Regardless of whether that\u2019s true, this isn\u2019t the time to back out on a previous commitment to hire an outside auditor. We\u2019re switching to a new system. Polarization is on the rise. Tensions are high.<\/p>\n

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

And at least one group preparing a proposal to do the job didn\u2019t get the opportunity to submit it. Why?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Pete Domenici has joined the chorus of Republicans upset that the state won\u2019t hire an independent auditor to canvass the Nov. 7 general election. The Secretary of State\u2019s Office says there isn\u2019t enough time. It claims it only received two bids, and neither met the requirements. But Domenici says otherwise, according to the Albuquerque […]<\/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-798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798","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=798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}