Former state AG says caucus results can’t be trusted

(This article has been updated to correct apparently inaccurate information. Please see the note at the end of the article for an explanation.)

The Democratic Party of New Mexico wants to assure the state that the results from Tuesday’s caucus will be trustworthy, but some believe the process is fatally tainted.

Among those critics is former Attorney General Patricia Madrid, who said problems with the caucus have resulted in “a tremendous black eye for Democrats in this state.”

“We have conducted an election that doesn’t have the integrity and the confidence of the voters,” said Madrid, who supported Barack Obama but was speaking for herself, not his campaign. “I’m particularly livid about this as an Obama supporter. Can we trust this vote? I don’t think so. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s going to end up in court.”

State party Chair Brian Colón, who apologized on Wednesday for the problems with the caucus, said he believes the results will be trustworthy. He noted that the party and the campaigns of Obama and Hillary Clinton spent more than a day working out a process for ensuring some 17,000 provisional ballots are counted fairly and consistently.

“The party and the campaigns are focused on accuracy,” Colón said.

The current results – which account for all but the provisional ballots – have Clinton ahead by 1,123 votes, 68,654 to 67,531. The race is close enough that provisional ballots could change everything.

What’s certain is that New Mexico Democrats were fairly evenly divided between Clinton and Obama – which made the problems with the caucus even more glaring.

The party was overwhelmed by the more than 153,000 people who cast ballots on Tuesday. It ran out of ballots at some locations, had only one polling place and a long line in Rio Rancho and had trouble reporting accurate and current results on its Web site on Tuesday evening and Wednesday. Some Democrats had to wait hours to vote. Others gave up and left.

In addition, final results and a declared winner are still several days away, while every other contest held around the nation on Tuesday had a declared winner by early Wednesday morning.

Criticism is harsh and widespread

Criticism has been harsh and widespread, and has come from people and organizations including The Albuquerque Tribune, Gov. Bill Richardson and Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chávez. Colón has taken responsibility.

But Madrid said those who pushed for the creation of the early caucus in New Mexico, which was first implemented in 2004, share the blame. She was one of the leading opponents of the caucus at the time, arguing that, as the state’s attorney general, she would have no jurisdiction to investigate problems because state election law doesn’t apply to a party-run caucus. In addition, a party-run caucus puts a critical vote in the hands of volunteers instead of paid, trained election workers.

“It doesn’t have all the checks and balances and the years of experience of a proper election,” Madrid said.

Richardson on Wednesday pointed the finger at the party officials and Democrats who didn’t help fund and volunteer with Tuesday’s caucus. He secured the funding for the caucus in 2004, but said he was too busy running for president and focusing on the Legislature to do it this time.

Madrid said the governor and others who pushed for the caucus share some of the blame for Tuesday’s problems.

“It seems to me it’s the responsibility of the governor and the other officials who got this through to properly fund it and make sure it’s well-run,” she said. “I’m very concerned that the election was not conducted properly and fairly.”

At stake are 26 of New Mexico’s delegates. The other 12 are super delegates who get to vote at the party’s August convention however they want. Of the 26, 17 are assigned proportionately based on the vote – Clinton and Obama appear poised to split those delegates fairly evenly – and the other nine delegates go to the winner.

A lot of provisional ballots

One lingering question from Tuesday’s caucus is why so many people – about 11 percent – ended up voting on provisional ballots. That high percentage was one of the causes of the chaos that engulfed the process on Tuesday.

James Flores, spokesman for the Secretary of State, said his office provided the voter list used by the Democratic Party, and he is confident in the list’s accuracy.

So is Colón, who said he suspects that the main cause of the high number of provisional ballots was the consolidation of people’s normal polling places and the fact that different sites were used in some cases than those used during government elections. He said many, if not most, Democrats were assigned to vote at different locations than they do in most elections.

Another reason some people vote on provisional ballots, he said, is that they show up to vote even though, for whatever reason, they aren’t eligible. People could also cast provisional ballots if they requested absentee ballots but never received them or didn’t mail them back to the party before Tuesday.

Colón said the sorting of the provisional ballots, which include affidavits, will provide more information about why so many were cast.

A note about why this article has been changed:

This article originally reported that the state party had decided to recount the 136,000 regular ballots that were cast on Tuesday, but that is not the case, Colón says. Here’s how it happened:

Two Albuquerque television stations reported on their Web sites today that state Democratic Party officials said the party was going to recount the ballots. One quoted Colón as saying the party and both campaigns had agreed to a recount to assure an accurate tally.

During my interview with Colón today, I mentioned that I had seen the television stations’ articles and understood there would be a recount. What I heard him say in reply, and recorded in my notes, was that the party and both campaigns had agreed to that to ensure an accurate tally.

He called later, after this article was originally published, to say there is no recount. The party is now in the process of scanning the ballots, which will again tally the votes that have already been counted by hand, but that is part of the process of the original count, not a recount. He said he didn’t intend to lead any reporter to believe there was a recount.

Colón is under a tremendous amount of stress and must be exhausted. I’m not interested in pointing fingers at anyone. I’m just interested in reporting accurate information. That’s why I rewrote this article. But I also had a duty to explain to you why I changed it.