Some 200 volunteers in black T-shirts marked "Election Protection" will be patrolling polling places in Santa Fe, Rio Arriba and six other New Mexico counties on election day to be on the lookout for voting problems.

The planned effort is part of an undertaking by Common Cause New Mexico in conjunction with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which has established a national toll-free hot line (1-866-OUR-VOTE) and maintains a Web site (www.866ourvote.org) for reporting election problems.

Steve Allen, executive director of Common Cause New Mexico, said in a teleconference Tuesday that pairs of volunteers will visit polling places in eight counties. About a third of the black T-shirt crew will be lawyers, he said. Several law students also are among the volunteers, Allen said.

The volunteers will be on the lookout for problems such as poll workers demanding photo identification, whether voters find their names on the rolls and long lines, Allen said.

While the volunteers have been trained to be "respectful and polite," they are prepared to point out problems to polling-place officials and, if necessary, call the county clerk or possibly even the Secretary of State's Office, Allen said.

Even though Rio Arriba County is smaller in population than Santa Fe County, Rio Arriba will get more volunteers, Allen said, because of Rio Arriba's "colorful election history."

In an interview following the teleconference, Allen said, "We've seen irregularities (in Rio Arriba) for years. We'll be looking for things such as poll workers taking ballot boxes home for safekeeping."

In addition to Santa Fe and Rio Arriba, other counties where the election-protection volunteers will operate are Bernalillo, Doña Ana, Sandoval, Cibola, Chaves and McKinley.

Besides the Common Cause poll watchers, voters in Santa Fe and three other counties — Bernalillo, Doña Ana and San Juan — will see some academic observers at the polls as well.

Lonna Atkeson, a political-science professor at The University of New Mexico, said during Tuesday's teleconference that she's conducting a study in which observers will take note of how uniformly election laws are administered in the various counties. Atkeson said she'll look at how the various counties handle voter-identification laws, provisional ballots and spoiled ballots. She said her observers also will look at the physical aspects of polling places, including how much privacy voters have while filling out their ballots.

Atkeson conducted a similar study in 2006.

Denise Lamb, director of Santa Fe County's Elections Bureau, said Tuesday that more than 38 percent of all registered voters in the county had cast early ballots or requested absentee ballots as of Monday.

By Monday night, 18,905 people had voted at early-voting places, Lamb said. About 8,000 people had returned absentee ballots, she said, while another 10,000 absentee ballots that have been mailed to voters have yet to be received.

Lamb said a new state law allows county clerks to begin counting absentee votes five days early. The county board overseeing the count will convene on Thursday, Lamb said, but probably won't start counting the absentee votes until Sunday.

Contact Steve Terrell at 986-3037 or sterrell@sfnewmexican.com.