There was a very low-turnout state Primary Election in New Mexico today. And yet, it brought more November tea leaves….
The Secretary of State’s office started getting calls around noon from smaller counties saying their computer connection to Santa Fe wasn’t working. By 1 p.m., no county in the state was connected to the system that allows counties to access voter registrations and also report results.
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Cibola County also experienced some computer problems. Election officials there said they only had one computer to verify where people should go to vote, as all other computers crashed.
Last we had checked (and no time to re-check for the moment), ES&S ran the voter registration system in NM. During the state’s Democratic Caucus last February, thousands of voters were reportedly dumped from the newly-privatized voting rolls. If you live in New Mexico, or anywhere else, please check your voter registration status soon!
See the full article for details on today’s failures in other counties across the state.
One of my New Mexico colleagues asked, “What are ballot verification procedures?”
What, indeed. She also commented that this article from one of our local TV stations, is really not very informative. Those of us who worked the polls know that the network for voter registrants is not used at the polls, and voters are checked in with good old paper-based lists. In the small precinct I worked (530 registered voters), we had two provisional ballot voters whose names were not in the registration list in the precinct or in the county clerk’s office. Both of those voters believed that they were registered. One of those provisional voters had documented proof that she was registered to vote in the Dem primary. So clerical errors or something are still lurking about.