State Sen. Dianna Duran, the Republican candidate for secretary of state, went on the offensive in a Wednesday night debate with incumbent Democrat Mary Herrera.

"In 98 years of our state's history, I don't believe I have seen a state office with so many problems, where three top-level employees have resigned or been fired alleging criminal misconduct," Duran said during the hour-long forum recorded at Santa Fe Community College.

Herrera, who is seeking a second four-year term in the Nov. 2 election, was on the defensive for most of the encounter. While she didn't respond to all of Duran's attacks, she said she has fulfilled all her promises to provide a competent and professional office for overseeing elections and campaign reports, among other duties.

Herrera also said she has saved taxpayers millions of dollars.

But after Herrera said she had run her office "like a business," Duran said, "With so many, many problems and with that amount of turnover, if this had been a business, it would have gone under."

A radio broadcast of the debate is scheduled for 4 p.m. today on KSFR, 101.1-FM radio, and a video of the event will be shown on Comcast cable Channel 16 at 6 p.m. today.

The employees to which Duran referred include Herrera's former elections director, A.J. Salazar, who resigned early this year. The former employees have charged that Herrera used her office for her re-election campaign, and that during work hours she ordered her exempt employees to gather petition signatures for her campaign.

As she has in the past, Herrera denied the allegation. She said she couldn't discuss many details of the departed employees because they were personnel matters.

Duran said, "This secretary of state continues to run her campaign out of her office."

Herrera denied that she politicized the office. "I brought in four Democrats and four Republicans," she said.

Two exempt employees who were fired after talking to the FBI about what they said was misconduct in the office were Republicans.

Herrera was asked about temporary employees who were hired during the last primary election to serve as "liaisons" in some counties — a move that angered some county clerks. According to documents released from the Secretary of State's Office, the only problems reported from Santa Fe County were that some poll workers weren't wearing their badges.

Documents showed there was no formal training for these temporary hires by the secretary of state.

Herrera said the $10,000 spent for the "liaisons" was money well spent. They were hired to instantly communicate with the secretary of state if there were problems, Herrera said. She said that when she was Bernalillo County clerk, she never could get through to the Secretary of State's Office on Election Day. She said formal training wasn't needed for the workers. The liaison hired to monitor Santa Fe County was former Santa Fe County Clerk Becky Bustamante.

Herrera also answered a question about her decision to allow a write-in candidate for governor, Kenneth Gomez, who has identified himself as a tea party Republican. Republicans, including Duran, say that is unconstitutional because in New Mexico, candidates for governor have to run on the same ticket with a candidate for lieutenant governor.

"I disagree with that criticism," Herrera said. "We will not disenfranchise any candidate who qualifies and we will not disenfranchise anyone who wants to vote for that candidate."

As a state senator from Tularosa, Duran has introduced several bills that would require voters to present identification at polling places. At the debate, Duran reiterated her support for voter identification — a position Republicans across the country have backed.

Herrera said Republican claims of voter fraud are overblown. She noted that former U.S. Attorney General David Iglesias had said there was no evidence of massive voter fraud in the state. (That position led to problems between Iglesias and other New Mexico Republicans, and apparently was a factor in his dismissal by the U.S. Justice Department during the administration of President George W. Bush.)

"I don't think voters want to spend millions of dollars implementing such a program," she said.

Steve Terrell was one of the panelists who posed questions to the candidates at the debate.

Contact Steve Terrell at 986-3037 or sterrell@sfnewmexican.com. Read his political blog at roundhouseroundup.com.