Outtakes: Poll Position
By Dan Frosch    Santa Fe Record   October 12, 2005 
New Mexico voting machines are under suspicion.

While the 2008 presidential election may seem light years away, for one election reform group, time is running out.

Last time around in New Mexico, things went wrong, according to Voter Action, a team of lawyers and election experts from New Mexico and across the country. The group has filed a lawsuit alleging the state?s voting machines botched some people?s votes, either by discounting them entirely or switching votes from John Kerry to George W Bush or vice versa.

Further, the group contends Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron has done little to address the alleged poll problems in part because she maintains close ties to the companies which make the voting machines.

The suit originally was filed last January in the Second Judicial District Court in Bernalillo County on behalf of eight New Mexicans who say they either saw or experienced problems with electronic voting machines on election day. Voter Action says the most egregious problems involved voting machines failing to register people?s votes?called ?undervoting??
and sometimes inadvertently transferring votes from one candidate to another, known as ?switch voting.?

The suit names Vigil-Giron and a slew of county clerks, including Santa Fe County Clerk Valerie Espinoza, and seeks a permanent injunction against the voting machines pending further investigation. ?Thus far, in terms of the depositions we?ve taken, I believe we?ve substantiated a real problem here,? Santa Fe lawyer David P Garcia, who is part of Voter Action?s legal team, says. ?We?re in the process of additional investigation to ferret out the full extent of the problems statewide.?

Voter Action says undervoting occurred in New Mexico nearly 3 percent of the time, well above the national norm of 1 percent, and the group is still in the process of figuring out how often switch voting occurred.

The discrepancies were particularly pronounced in areas with high numbers of Hispanic and Native Americans, the group says. According to Voter Action, one in 16 ballots for president in predominantly Hispanic precincts was not counted, while one in 12 ballots in predominantly Native American precincts was not counted.

Vigil-Giron?s response to the alleged problems is also an increasingly important issue for Voter Action.

 ?It has been a case of hear no evil, see no evil on the part of the secretary of state,? Voter Action attorney Lowell Finley says. ?The response has been to deny that any problems existed.?

NM Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron's campaign received $1,500 from a voter machine company. 

Vigil-Giron and her attorney could not be reached for comment prior to publication. Santa Fe County Clerk Valerie Espinoza could not be reached for comment. Santa Fe County Bureau of Elections Director Denise Lamb, formerly the State Bureau of Elections director, said she could not comment on the case.

Particularly at issue is Vigil-Giron?s relationship with two companies that provide voting machines for New Mexico: Sequoia Voting Systems and Election Systems & Software.

Records provided by Voter Action show that Sequoia Pacific (Sequoia Voting Systems? former moniker) contributed $1,500 to Vigil-Giron?s campaign for state office in 2001 and Ken Carbullido, an executive with Election Systems & Software, gave $2,500.

Both Sequoia and Election Systems & Software also are part of the National Association of Secretaries of State?s (NASS) ?Corporate Affiliate Roster,? billed in a NASS brochure as ?a savvy way to share ideas and build relationships with key state decision makers while supporting the civic mission of the association.? Private companies, many of them election-related, pay between $2,500 and $20,000 to join the business group, and their dues help pay for, among other things, the NASS? daily budget.

?One thing you can count on: NASS members to return your phone calls,? reads a quote from an unnamed Corporate Affiliate Roster member in the NASS brochure.

Vigil-Giron is currently president of NASS.

While such cozy relationships are not uncommon among secretaries of state, they raise serious questions about the ability of state officials to independently investigate problems with voting machines, Finley says.

?We think it?s inappropriate for the secretary of state to have these special relationships,? Finley says. ?It?s not illegal, but it gives the appearance that these companies have improper influence over someone with tremendous power.?

Voter Action first began working in New Mexico, long plagued by voting problems, in the wake of the 2004 election when it took more than a month to determine that George Bush had taken the state by nearly 6,000 votes. At that time, Voter Action was asked to look into the  situation by state Green and Libertarian party officials who wanted a statewide recount.

The recount request initially was denied by the State Canvassing Board, consisting of Vigil-Giron, Gov. Bill Richardson and state Supreme Court Justice Petra Maes; an appeal by Green and Libertarian Party members has been filed. During the course of its work on the recount and amidst local accounts of undervotes and switch votes, however, Voter Action decided to focus on electronic voting machines as well and subsequently filed its suit.

A motion for summary judgment from Vigil-Giron?essentially an attempt to have the case dismissed?currently is pending. Santa Fe County Clerk Espinoza also has filed a motion to dismiss.

Says Holly Jacobson, co-founder of Voter Action: ?This lawsuit is not about proving who won or lost the last election, but about protecting future elections. New Mexicans deserve to know that their votes were counted correctly."