Governor proposes election reforms  
By DEBORAH BAKER | Associated Press
February 17, 2005

SANTA FE - With the legislative session half over, Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson has proposed a package of election changes that includes a requirement for voters to present some identification.

Republicans who have pushed voter ID for several years welcomed his endorsement of the concept but criticized his plan as too weak.

The governor announced his election initiatives on Wednesday, flanked by the attorney general and secretary of state, who helped him develop them.

House Voters and Elections Chairman Edward Sandoval, D-Albuquerque, said the bill was "basically a template" that may be altered or combined with other proposals from lawmakers.

Richardson said his proposals "will make New Mexico's election process more accurate and timely, will make voting more user-friendly, and will restore the public's confidence in the results."

A voter would have to verbally give election officials a name, the last four digits of a Social Security number, and a birth year, or else show documentation that could include a photo ID, utility bills, government checks or paychecks or tribal ID.

"The voter ID proposal is nothing more than a wink and a nod. It's not substantive; we need to do a lot of work on it in committee," said Rep. Justine Fox-Young, R-Albuquerque.

 
The midpoint of the 60-day session is Thursday.

The bill requires voting machines by the end of 2006 to have "a verifiable and auditable paper trail" _ a record that election officials could use to check the veracity of a machine count.

That could mean using paper ballots that are fed into scanning machines, or it could mean retrofitting electronic voting machines _ including touch-screen machines _ with some sort of digital devices.

Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron said about 1,100 voting machines in the state must be replaced anyway because they don't meet federal standards enacted in 2002. That would cost $8 million to $10 million, she estimated.

A revolving fund from which counties can borrow money for new voting machines will have to be shored up if they are to meet the 2006 deadline proposed in the bill, she said.

Other election reforms _ such as same-day registration and greater uniformity in voting machines _ will be studied after the session by an interim committee headed by House Speaker Ben Lujan, D-Santa Fe.

Attorney General Patricia Madrid urged that task force to study ways to prevent absentee ballot fraud, an area she said wasn't addressed in the legislation presented on Wednesday.

Other provisions in the bill:

_County clerks could begin feeding paper absentee ballots into electronic voting systems to tabulate the votes five days before the election, although the count wouldn't be done until 7 p.m. on election day.

_Voters could off their absentee ballots at polling places on election day or vote at the polling places if their absentees were unused.

_ Maps would be required at polling places that show the precincts represented and a list of the voters in each precinct.

_Groups that collect absentee ballot applications would have to turn them over to county clerks within 24 hours or on the next business day.

_Votes on paper ballots would be counted if the voters circled the candidates' names.

_The secretary of state would issue rules for the handling of provisional ballots, and discrepancies in middle initials, suffixes and addresses would not necessarily disqualify them.

_The secretary of state would train poll workers and other election workers and produce a training manual.