Quote:
Originally Posted by GregW3
Last I heard they still haven't located the county commissioner or his office due to the horrendous snowstorms. I'm not kidding. Nothing political, just really bad weather
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This might be a little more feasible if it hadn't happened with startling regularity. Remember, it took incredibly much longer in New Mexico than in other similarly close states (with incredibly higher populations) in BOTH the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections (in '00 NM eventually went for Gore but in '04 it eventually went for Bush) AND a local-yet-statewide-significant race, the 2006 Heather Wilson v. Patricia Madrid District 1 Congressional race.
In the presidential instances, it was a nationwide embarrassment for New Mexico. And while both Bush v. Gore and Bush v. Kerry were razor thin, thankfully neither race boiled down to New Mexico. However, '00 boiled down to Florida and '04 boiled down to Ohio, so it wasn't out of the question that in such close races, New Mexico's 5 electoral votes could've helped decide things. Thank goodness that wasn't the case, or it would've been beyond embarrassment for the state and the real incompetency would've been demonstrated.
The '06 Congressional race between Wilson and Madrid was equally appalling, even though granted it wasn't a statewide thing (but easily the biggest and most populated district of the 3 in New Mexico) and with Congressional representation on the line, was so crucial to the whole state (and was so especially disgusting since we'd just seen a similar incompetent delay only two years earlier in the presidential election).
The bottom line is that the Secretary of States are the ultimate authorities on these matters, and the job isn't getting done. Enough of the excuses. Such incompetence pooh pooh'd off by every excuse in the world would never be tolerated whatsoever in the private sector...why does NM allow it for its critical elections? I realize that this is a vast, large, state that in many places is rural, however, there are tons of states like that in this nation who don't struggle anywhere near to this level anywhere near this consistently. There are 2 million people in the state only - it isn't rocket science (considering the amount of time that the Sec of States have to prep for these elections and their ensuing countings).
Rebecca Vigil-Giron was the Secretary of State for the State of New Mexico for both the '00 and '04 presidential elections, so both failures in expedient countings fell squarely on her lap. No excuses.
Then, the '06 Congressional race was governed by the local Secretary of State for that district - Mary Herrera - who was even more incompetent. So what did the voters do? They elected Herrera to replace Vigil-Giron to the State Secretary of State! Arrrrghhh!!!
That position is really a very non-political one. It isn't related to policy setting like many / most other political issues. Thus, I didn't get why that alone wouldn't have caused us all to vote for Herrera's opponent in that election. Just to punish her (not reward her) for that fiasco and try to get someone competent into that job who could oversee votes being counted actually somewhat on time.
Now...this, the Democratic thing. Golly. Just amazing.
The scary thing is that again, in '08, with there always being a large Democratic base in the state, and with the GOP running McCain (popular in NM due to his southwestern association as being from neighboring Arizona), I could easily see the presidential race being very close again in New Mexico. Tell anyone why we should expect any quicker / more competent vote counting this time around?
I don't care if you are a Democrat, Republican, Independent, conservative, moderate, or liberal...I would say that if I were a voting New Mexican citizen as I recently was, for ANY Secretary of State election, I would vigorously vote the incumbent out of their role and get some new blood in those posts. Stop rewarding incompetence / patronizing excuses and get people in who will do good, competent jobs.
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