2009 LEGISLATURE; ELECTION BILLS DIE IN SESSION.

Byline: STEVE TERRELL

Measure requiring audit of ballots is sole success

By Steve Terrell

The New Mexican 

Two bills pertaining to elections -- which for a few moments appeared to have legs in the recently concluded 2009 state Legislature -- ultimately failed to make it out of the session.

One measure that passed the House but stalled in the Senate was House Bill 52, sponsored by Rep. Jim Trujillo, D-Santa Fe, which would have allowed people to register at early voting sites and vote immediately afterward.

The other bill, HB383, was an ambitious plan that would change the way in which New Mexico's presidential electors cast their votes.

However, one election bill that did pass is being applauded by voting watchdog groups. That's Senate Bill 72, which, if signed by Gov. Bill Richardson, will require an automatic audit of the ballots at random precincts after an election to ensure vote tabulators are working.

"The bill ensures, with at least a 90 percent probability, that faulty (electronic scanners) are detected if they would change an election outcome," said Bob Stearns of Santa Fe. Stearns is a member of the Verified Voting New Mexico steering committee. Both that group and United Voters of New Mexico backed the bill, which was sponsored by Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque.

The bill passed unanimously in the Senate and the House.

The bill would require the secretary of state to contract with an auditor at least 90 days before each general election to oversee a check on the accuracy of the vote tabulators. The check would be conducted for the race in which the winning candidate won by the smallest percentage in the state. This would only apply to races for statewide and federal offices.

Within 12 days after the election, the auditor would publicly select a random sample of precincts from a pool of all precincts in the state, starting with the statewide office with the largest winning margin and ending with the precincts for the statewide office with the smallest winning margin and then, in the same manner, select precincts from each congressional district.

County clerks from the precincts chosen would have to compare the original machine count precinct vote totals for candidates with the respective vote totals of a hand recount of the paper ballots from those precincts.

The number of precincts that must be examined would increase as the winning-margin percentage decreases. If no statewide or federal race was won by a margin of less than 15 percent -- which hasn't happened in recent years -- the check would not have to be performed.

Trujillo's measure started out as a same-day registration bill. However, at the urging of the Secretary of State's Office, he amended it so that voters wouldn't be able to register on election day itself. The clerks argued that trying to register voters at the polls on election day presented logistical problems, but registering at early-voting locations wouldn't be difficult.

Early voting ends the weekend before the primary and the general election.

Trujillo and other supporters said the bill would encourage more participation in elections and would help those who had recently moved and had been registered elsewhere.

The bill was opposed by Republicans and others who said it would encourage voter fraud. A Las Cruces political action committee called Hispanos Unidos bought television ads opposing the measure. PAC leader Victor Contreras said the group spent about $4,500 to air the ads. HB52 never made it out of the Senate Rules Committee.

HB363, sponsored by Rep. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, also passed the House and died in the Senate Rules Committee. Once it went into effect, it would have required the state to cast its five electoral votes for the presidential candidate who gets the most votes nationwide -- even if the state voted for another candidate.

Had the bill become law, New Mexico would have entered into an interstate compact with other states passing similar legislation. The law would not have gone into effect until states with electoral votes totaling more than half the national total had joined the compact. That would be 270 of 538 electoral votes. This would guarantee that whoever won the popular vote nationally would win the election.

"I just believe that the person who gets the most votes should win the election," Stewart said before the House passed the bill.

Opponents in the House argued that New Mexico -- which was a swing state in the past three presidential elections -- no longer would get the attention of presidential candidates. Instead, opponents argued, candidates from both parties would concentrate their efforts in large population areas.

So far only four states -- Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland and Hawaii -- have joined the interstate compact. Those four states have 50 electoral votes among them.

Contact Steve Terrell at 986-3037 or [e-mail]. Read his political blog at roundhouseroundup.com.