New Mexico Secretary of State Dianna Duran has informed the Attorney General's Office about two noncitizens who have voluntarily asked for their names to be removed from voter rolls.

One of these cases involves a man who is a legal resident of the U.S., but not a citizen. He has worked 22 years for an unnamed county government. Duran said he told the Secretary of State's Office that he was encouraged to register to vote in 1998 and has voted in almost every election since then.

In her Nov. 3 letter to Attorney General Gary King, Duran said the cases in question did not appear to be intentionally violating the state Election Code.

"This gentleman recently went to apply for U.S. citizenship, and at that time learned he was not eligible to vote," Duran said in the letter. "He learned that having registered and voted was an impediment to his application for citizenship."

The other case involves a woman who said she was pressured by a third-party registration agent to register to vote. This person never voted, Duran told King.

During this year's regular legislative session, Duran brought up the issue of noncitizens voting against the backdrop of noisy battles among lawmakers concerning the issue of driver's licenses for illegal immigrants and requiring voter identification to have photo identification.

Duran said in her letter to King that the problem appears to be that the state "voter registration process is failing citizens and non-citizens alike."

She said foreign nationals who have registered to vote might have been misled by third-party voting registration agents, or might not have understood the law: "... non citizens who have registered and/or voted appear to be finding themselves in the positions of having, perhaps unintentionally, committed a crime and may be subject to prosecution and/or deportation."

Duran's letter didn't disclose names of anyone who had illegally registered to vote. She said she has asked King for guidance on whether disclosing the names might violate federal or state laws pertaining to privacy in regard to information on driver's licenses and voter registrations. But, she said, she has never heard back from King on the matter.

These are the first — and so far only — specific cases of noncitizens on the voter rolls since Duran told legislators earlier this year that she had found 117 foreign nationals who had registered to vote. Duran said at the time at least 37 of those people had actually voted in state elections.

Duran said her office is attempting to contact other foreign nationals to allow them to voluntarily remove their names from the voter rolls. It's not clear how many more there are.

In an email to the state's 33 county clerks sent Sunday, Duran said, "We will be sending letters to a number of individuals who appear to have irregularities in their voter information and we will be asking that they complete new registration applications."

This was an apparent reference to the 64,000 names of registered voters given to state police for investigation over apparent irregularities. Asked how many letters would be sent, Duran's chief of staff Ken Ortiz said in an email, "It is impossible to forecast, or foresee, the results of reviews of the statewide voter file, or to anticipate the number of people who unlawfully registered to vote."

Moreover, he said, "The secretary of state's office has not added any additional personnel or budget related to this review. ... It is being handled within our existing budget."

Duran's email to the county clerks also pointed to a problem with the state vital records offices reporting when people die to the private company that maintains the state voter rolls.

"The initial review identified 641 names of deceased voters [on state voter rolls], which appears to date back several years," Ortiz said. He said his office is working on the problem.

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