County clerks unhappy with voting machine vendor
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4/24/2008 -
Secretary of State Mary Herrera assured lawmakers Thursday that her office was prepared for the June primary election, but county clerks worry about the possible failure of memory cards in voting machines used across New Mexico.Representatives of the state's 33 county clerks said they need extra memory cards to protect against failures during the election. The cards hold ballot information and are necessary for vote tabulators to operate.
Ballots must be hand counted — a potential source of delays in reporting the outcome of races — if tabulators aren't working.
"If we could have extra memory cards ... that would greatly relieve our stress," said Sheryl Nichols, chief deputy clerk in Los Alamos County and president of the Association of County Clerks. Each vote tabulator has two memory cards, with one serving as a backup.
Legislators and elections officials complained that the state has only one supplier for its paper ballot voting system and the computer systems used for voter registration and campaign finance reporting. Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software, known as ES&S is New Mexico's vendor.
"Unfortunately, we have a monopoly now in New Mexico," said Denise Lamb, who heads the election bureau for the Santa Fe County clerk. "We are over a barrel with these people. They have not been particularly responsive to the state."
Herrera and county elections officials testified before the Legislative Finance Committee about the state's readiness for the busy June 3 primary. There are races for the Democratic and Republican nominations in all three congressional districts as well as a battle for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate.
Absentee voting begins May 6, and early voting starts May 17.
Herrera said her office had worked with county clerks to adequately prepare for the election. "You feel you've done everything ... to guarantee that we have a smooth election in June?" asked state Sen. John Arthur Smith, a Deming Democrat and committee chairman.
"Yes, sir," replied Herrera.
Deputy Secretary of State Don Francisco Trujillo said the office has about 100 memory cards it will distribute to counties. He said the office has worked with ES&S to obtain a better price for counties wishing to buy extra cards.
In addition, the secretary of state has recalled memory cards that have been used by county clerks. The cards are being tested and certified and will have their internal batteries replaced before being returned to the counties in advance of the primary election.
"We will have a good election, but we need a little help," Lamb said.
Some lawmakers complained about past elections when it took days to determine the winner of some races.
Herrera warned that delays are likely again when there are close races because of provisional ballots. Provisional ballots are used for voters who show up at the wrong polling place or whose names do not appear on the roster of registered voters. Provisional ballots are hand counted after the election once a voter's registration is verified.
Herrera has authorized counties to use an optional method for counting provisional ballots in hopes of speeding up the process, but several lawmakers objected to the plan.
Herrera said counties can take a blank ballot and "re-mark" it with the votes cast on a provisional ballot. The new ballots can be fed into an automatic tabulator rather than hand counting them. The original provisional ballot and the remarked ballot will be stapled together in case of a recount.
Reps. Rhonda King, D-Stanley, and Don Bratton, R-Hobbs, said they were troubled by election workers filling out ballots. "Any time you've got blank ballots out there to be used, you've got the opportunity for election manipulation," said Bratton.
But Herrera and Trujillo said there were safeguards. At least four elections officials — two Democrats and two Republicans — will oversee and re-mark the ballots. Separate tabulators also will be used for those ballots.
On other elections issues:
- The secretary of state faces a $1.2 million budget shortfall for the November general election and plans to ask the state Board of Finance to loan it the money. The board recently provided a $595,000 loan to cover higher than expected costs of the primary election. The secretary of state also may ask for a $305,000 loan to pay for one-year maintenance contracts for the paper ballot voting systems used by the counties, which have complained about high maintenance costs charged by ES&S.
- An audit of the state's use of federal election money should be issued publicly by the end of May, and Trujillo said the findings "are not favorable" to the state. The inspector general of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission has been looking into whether the Secretary of State's Office properly spent about $20 million in federal money from 2003 through 2006. Herrera took office in 2007, succeeding Rebecca Vigil-Giron. Trujillo said the Secretary of State's Office had a recent meeting with the inspector general, but he couldn't publicly release any documents or details of the audit.
