District 3 of the state Public Regulation Commission covers all or parts of 13 counties, and nearly all of their county clerks' offices have the same understanding of straight-ticket voting.

Exceptions on Monday were found in San Miguel, Rio Arriba and Colfax counties.

New Mexico ballots for the Nov. 4 election allow voters to cast straight-Democratic or straight-Republican ballots for president, U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives and other offices by filling in a single oval at the top of the sheet. But voters can also make exceptions in races of their choosing.

In Santa Fe County, Clerk Valerie Espinoza said she has been inundated by inquiries from voters who want to know if they can vote a straight ticket in all but the PRC race, where Democrat Jerome Block Jr. faces Green Party member Rick Lass in a heated contest.

In response to calls by The New Mexican to 12 of the county clerks' offices in District 3 on Monday, most workers were quick to say voters indeed have the "crossover" option.

"Sure you can," a Sandoval County worker said.

"Yes, sir," said a Harding County worker. "It's called a crossover."

"Absolutely," said another in Los Alamos County.

A Colfax County worker at first wasn't sure. "No — if you vote straight party, it's straight party all the way," she said. Asked if she was certain of that, she consulted a co-worker and returned to say she had been mistaken.

Rio Arriba County has two offices, and in Española, the worker said crossover voting is allowed. But in the Tierra Amarilla office, the worker said the opposite. She went on, "I don't know if the machine will pick it up. The machine is kind of picky."

In San Miguel County, which has faced scrutiny over Clerk Paul Maez's relationship with Block, a worker said voters don't have the crossover option. "No, you can't," he said. Asked if he was sure about that, he said, "I don't know."

Early voters in San Miguel County have reported the same confusion in recent days.

"I said that's not correction information," Lass supporter Robert Jones of Las Vegas, N.M., said when recalling a conversation with a San Miguel County Clerk's Office employee. "She said you can't do that or it will spoil your ballot."

Jones said he is concerned about the ties between Maez and Block, who are longtime friends, but he doesn't think that's a factor in the confusion. "I don't think it's a conspiracy," he said. "I'll tell you that no one gets any training in this county."

San Miguel County Deputy Clerk Melanie Rivera, who heads the office's Bureau of Elections, later said that employee who responded to The New Mexican inquiry is not involved in elections and just happened to pick up the phone. "If he's giving wrong information, I need to know because I need to correct that," she said.

Last week, the Secretary of State's Office sent a letter to District 3 clerks in an effort to avoid trouble, but Lass in a letter to state officials Monday said confusion remains.

Pat Leahan, a voting-rights advocate in San Miguel County, said Maez has left much of the election supervision duties up to Rivera, who won the Democratic nomination to succeed Maez and is running unopposed this fall.

"Actually I've been kind of pleased with how he's letting her run the office so she isn't completely in he dark when he leaves office," Leahan said. "I think she's been quite competent."

Leahan backed up what Jones said he experience, but she also saw numerous voters receive correct information, including herself.

Contact Doug Mattson at 986-3087 or dmattson@sfnewmexican.com.