New Mexico: Reports: Motor Vehicle Department has voting registration problems | New Mexico Telegram

Reports say the state is having problems with voter registration at Motor Vehicle Department offices around the state. The state is required, by federal law “to provide individuals with the opportunity to register to vote at the same time that they apply for a driver’s license or seek to renew a driver’s license, and requires the State to forward the completed application to the appropriate state of local election official.” Oriana Sandoval, the policy director of the Center for Civic Policy*, told KOAT that she was unable to register to vote at an MVD office recently when she went to renew her driver’s license. Sandoval told Action 7 News last week she tried to renew her voter registration at a downtown MVD. Rather than having it done simultaneously with the license renewal, she was handed a piece of paper with directions on how to sign up to vote online, on a home or work computer. “I would’ve used a kiosk at the MVD, but there wasn’t one available at the downtown office,” Sandoval said.

Voting Blogs: New Mexico Secretary of State Revives 21-Year Old Discredited Attorney General Opinion to Remove Green and Constitution Parties from Ballot | Ballot Access News

New Mexico Secretary of State Dianna J. Duran, a Republican, recently removed the Green Party and the Constitution Party from the ballot, even though both parties successfully petitioned in 2012 and even though, for the last seventeen years, New Mexico law has been interpreted to mean that when a party successfully petitions for party status, it gets the next two elections, not just one election. The Secretary of State found a discredited 1992 Attorney General’s Opinion that says a party should be removed, after just one election, if it runs for either Governor or President and fails to get one-half of 1%. Yet, the Opinion says if a party qualifies by petition and then doesn’t run for either Governor or President, it remains on the ballot for the next election.

New Mexico: Secretary of State opposes bill that would streamline voting process | Santa Fe Reporter

… State Rep. Nate Cote, D-Doña Ana … has a package of bills designed to prevent such a catastrophe in the future. Yet one is being opposed by the very official who oversees New Mexico’s elections, Secretary of State Dianna Duran. Duran, who served as Otero County clerk from 1989 to 1993, has connections to the same office that critics blame for the Chaparral fiasco. “Let’s face it, that’s where the Secretary of State comes from,” Cote says. (Duran did not respond to SFR’s request for comment.) One of Cote’s bills would require an early voting site within 50 miles of population areas representing at least 1,500 registered voters. (Last election, the closest early voting site for Otero County Chaparral residents was in Alamogordo, roughly 85 miles away.) A second bill would establish stricter guidelines for voting center staff and resources on Election Day. Duran’s office has neither endorsed nor opposed the latter bill, but Guerra says it’s unnecessary because she’s already planning to add more staff for upcoming elections. Duran’s office does oppose the early voting bill, arguing that the Chaparral mess happened because two voting precincts were represented by one election board and one polling place.

New Mexico: GOP attempt to institute voter ID fails in Chaparral vote chaos fix | New Mexico Telegram

The members of the Republican Party in the House attempted a backdoor maneuver at adding voter ID language to state law. The effort was to add an amendment to a loosely-related bill — one that would increase voter access in Chaparral, where long lines plagued the area. The amendment was tabled 38-31. The final bill, sponsored by Rep. Nate Cote, D-Las Cruces, would require an early voting site for a population center of more than 1,500 residents that is more than 50 miles from the nearest early voting site. The bill passed on a 38-31 vote. The Secretary of State’s office was not on board with the legislation.

New Mexico: Vote-counting machines in $122M capital package | Albuquerque Journal

Money for new vote-counting machines around New Mexico has been folded into a $122.6 million package of statewide public works projects that members of a House committee were considering late Monday. The $6 million for vote-counting machines, or tabulators, was requested by Secretary of State Dianna Duran and would be the first infusion of cash needed to replace outdated machines used by county clerks statewide. “We would not be able to replace all the machines with that money,” Duran’s chief of staff, Ken Ortiz, said Monday. A revised version of a $122.6 million capital outlay package, House Bill 337, includes 121 public works projects around the state. Here are the five biggest projects by dollar amount: Money for the new vote-counting machines is one of the biggest revisions in the public works – or capital outlay – package that is larger than a previous Democratic-backed package. That $97 million version was held back this month amid concerns from Republican lawmakers that it was being rushed.

New Mexico: Bill Would Reinstate Straight-Party Vote | ABQ Journal

Senate Democrats have introduced a bill to reinstate straight-party ticket voting in New Mexico. Before the 2012 election, New Mexico voters could select every Democratic or Republican candidate on the ballot by checking a single box at the top of the page. But Secretary of State Dianna Duran eliminated the decades-old practice last year, saying it was not specifically allowed by state law. “Without really any notice or any awareness, there was this change that was made that, I think, caused some confusion for individuals that went to the polls,” said Sen. Howie Morales, D-Silver City, a co-sponsor of Senate Bill 276 to restore the straight-party voting option.

New Mexico: Fight over court to hear straight ticket case | Santa Fe New Mexican

Secretary of State Dianna Duran wants a federal court to take over a lawsuit brought by New Mexico Democrats to restore the option of straight party ticket voting in the general election. Duran’s office filed Monday with the U.S. District Court to remove the case from the state Supreme Court. Democrats asked the Supreme Court last week to order Duran, a Republican, to change ballots to allow New Mexico residents to vote for a party’s entire slate of candidate by making a single mark.

New Mexico: State short of money for general election costs | Farmington Daily Times

Unexpected general election costs have created a $1.4 million hole in the secretary of state’s budget, but the financial squeeze won’t prevent New Mexicans from casting ballots in November, according to New Mexico’s top elections official. Secretary of State Dianna Duran came up empty-handed Tuesday in asking the state Board of Finance for emergency funding for the $1.4 million costs of leased equipment that will print ballots at about 180 “voting convenience centers” in 15 counties. Those allow voters to go to a consolidated polling location most convenient to them rather than their traditional precinct-based voting site.

New Mexico: New Mexico voter purge hits active voters | KUNM

A voting rights activist and the wife of a Democratic state representative are among more than 177,000 New Mexico voters whose status has been deemed inactive. The move is raising questions about the criteria being used by Republican Secretary of State Dianna Duran as she begins a cleanup of voter rolls three months before the presidential elections.

New Mexico: Voter purge postcards sent to active voters | New Mexico Telegram

The postcards by the Secretary of State’s office that Dianna Duran said are designed to clean the voter rolls of inactive voters and those who have moved are reaching at least some who do not fit either definition. And those who have received them say they are confusing. The mailers say in bold letters, “Confirmation of Voter Registration” and, “Please detach complete and return this postcard no later than Oct 9, 2012.” In smaller letters below, the postcard says: If this card is not returned and you do not vote in any election from the date of this notice through the November, 2014 general election, your name will be removed from the voter registration list. And the postcards are causing confusion over whether or not the recipients have to reply to the postcards to be eligible to vote.

New Mexico: State ends straight-ticket voting option | KRQE

A fixture on ballots for decades, the option to vote a straight party ticket is disappearing in New Mexico and won’t be available when people head to the polls in November. Voters historically could easily choose to support a party’s entire slate of candidates by making just one mark on the ballot or pressing a single button or level on a machine. But Secretary of State Dianna Duran has decided not to allow that in this year’s general election because there’s no provision in state law specifically authorizing it. “Her job is to follow the law,” said Ken Ortiz, the secretary of state’s chief of staff. What remains unclear is whether elimination of the straight-ticket option will disproportionately help or hurt Democratic or Republican candidates.

New Mexico: Forum presents downsides of voter-ID laws | Santa Fe New Mexican

Requiring voters to present photo identification before casting ballots at the polls would disenfranchise many New Mexicans and would especially affect minorities, the elderly, students and people with disabilities, said several panelists Monday at a League of Women Voters panel discussion. Panel members urged lawmakers to vote against any photo ID bill introduced in the Legislature. However, they probably were preaching to the choir — as only Democratic legislators showed up to the event. Democrats in New Mexico, and elsewhere in the country, tend to be against voter-ID legislation, while Republicans tend to support it.

New Mexico: Lawmakers to consider voter ID requirement | The Santa Fe New Mexican

Legislation to repeal the law that allows illegal immigrants to get driver’s licenses often is cited as the most divisive issue the Legislature likely will deal with during the upcoming session. But another highly controversial and highly partisan issue also will be debated at the Roundhouse during the 30-day session.

The issue is a perennial one in New Mexico — “voter ID,” which is political shorthand for requiring voters to show photo identification before voting. The chief of staff for Secretary of State Dianna Duran confirmed Tuesday that Duran will push for such legislation in the session. And a spokesman for Gov. Susana Martinez said Tuesday that the governor would grant a message for the bill to allow it to be addressed in the upcoming session.

In this state, as in other states across the country, Republicans support the voter ID idea, saying it’s needed to protect against vote fraud — such as people using someone else’s name to vote. However, Democrats counter that there’s no evidence that massive voter fraud actually exists and claim that the whole idea is a Republican scheme to repress voter turnout among the elderly, young voters and minorities. Those groups are the most likely not to have voter identification. And, historically, these groups tend to vote for Democrats.

Editorials: Look elsewhere for voter fraud | The Santa Fe New Mexican

If nothing else, Secretary of State Dianna Duran deserves credit for getting to the bottom of that age-old, oft-repeated New Mexico folk tale about dead people voting. Not so much, it turns out.

And Duran can prove it, too. Once in office, she and her staff have taken the state’s voter list, torn it apart, put it back together and in the end, found almost no voter fraud in New Mexico. From the 64,000 voter registration records she once referred to state police as possible cases of voter fraud, we are down to 100-plus voters apparently registered illegally. Of those “illegally” registered, 19 possible non-citizens might have cast a ballot they should not have. Another 641 people, now believed to be deceased, remain on the rolls, although there is scant evidence they are voting. That’s out of 1.1 million registered voters, by the way.

New Mexico: GOP New Mexico Sec of State Finds Tiny Fraction Of The Voter Fraud She Alleged | TPM

New Mexico Secretary of State Dianna Duran said earlier this year that her state had a “culture of corruption” and referred 64,000 voter registration records to police that she thought were possible cases of voter fraud. Now a new report from her office proves she was completely right, 0.0296875 percent of the time.

Duran’s interim report now alleges that 104 voters — about one for every 10,577 on the rolls — were illegally registered to vote. Of that group, just 19 — or approximately one for every 57,894 registered voters — actually allegedly cast a ballot they shouldn’t have.

New Mexico: Watchdog: Probe of voter registrations detrimental | The Santa Fe New Mexican

A national elections watchdog group has told Secretary of State Dianna Duran that her referral of 64,000 voter registrations to the state Department of Public Safety for investigation might undermine confidence in the system and violate state law.

In a letter to Duran dated Thursday, Ben Hovland, senior counsel for the Washington, D.C.-based Fair Elections Legal Network, wrote, “We fear that your attempt to ensure ‘accuracy and integrity’ in the system has had the opposite effect as unsubstantiated claims of large numbers of irregularities on voter registration records do not lead to greater accuracy of records and may, indeed, serve to undermine confidence in the system.”

Hovland asked for additional details as to the nature of this investigation, including the methodology used to select and examine the 64,000 registration records, when the investigation might be finished, and information about the steps taken to protect the private data in the registration records being investigated.

New Mexico: State Cops Skip Voter File Probe | Albuquerque Journal

The State Police are not conducting a proposed criminal investigation into 64,000 irregularities in the state’s voter file, although Secretary of State Dianna Duran sent the files to the agency months ago for an inquiry.

Gorden Eden, secretary of the state Department of Public Safety, which oversees the State Police, said Friday that his agency has been acting in an “advisory” role with Duran’s office but does not have the resources to look at all 64,000 cases. He also said it is more appropriate for Duran’s office to conduct the inquiry.

“This is truly an issue, a case, that needed to be looked at by the SOS’s office,” Eden said. But Eden did not rule out a future criminal investigation, if evidence is presented that one is needed.

New Mexico: Secretary of State Dianna Duran ruffles feathers | latimes.com

Dianna Duran, New Mexico’s secretary of State who took office in January, sounded a tad pugnacious in March when she reported that 117 foreign nationals with phony Social Security numbers had registered to vote and 37 had cast ballots in elections. There was, she said, “a culture of corruption” in the state.

Duran, who had ordered her staff to check 1.16 million voter registration records against motor vehicle and Social Security databases, also raised eyebrows by referring 64,000 voter registration records to the state police, citing irregularities.

No one has been charged with a crime, and Duran, a former Republican state senator and county clerk, has since taken fire from Democratic legislators, public interest groups and news organizations that say she has overstated her case, scared voters and withheld proof of her claims.

Editorials: Our View: Voter fraud: Lay it out in the open | Silver City Sun-News

When the state’s top election official makes a public allegation of criminal behavior during prior elections, it is something that should be taken seriously and looked at closely. Secretary of State Dianna Duran made just such an allegation in March during a legislative committee hearing. Duran told lawmakers she had uncovered evidence that 37 people who are not U.S. citizens had voted in New Mexico elections.

But, when the ACLU filed an open records request the next day to examine the registration records of the 37 voters highlighted by Duran during the public meeting of the Legislature, she refused to turn them over, hiding behind the weak and inappropriate excuse of “executive privilege.”

Executive privilege allows a president, governor or other member of the executive branch to confer with advisors in private, without divulging the nature of those discussions or the participants. For example, when Democrats wanted to know who had served on an energy task force several years ago, Vice President Dick Cheney claimed executive privilege in denying that request. It does not allow a member of the executive branch to conceal evidence of an alleged crime.

New Mexico: ACLU sues New Mexico Secretary of State over voter registration | Alamogordo Daily News

The ACLU of New Mexico on Wednesday sued Secretary of State Dianna Duran, claiming she violated the open records law by withholding public information about alleged wrongdoing by voters.

To read the full text of the complaint, click here.

Duran, a Republican, told state legislators in March that she had evidence of possible voter fraud by 37 people. She said they had cast ballots in New Mexico elections but may not have been U.S. citizens. A day later, the ACLU filed a public information request to inspect the records so it could check Duran’s allegations. In its lawsuit filed in state district court in Albuquerque, the ACLU said that Duran’s staff then illegally concealed documents. The ACLU contends that Duran inappropriately invoked “executive privilege” and redacted requested emails and records so heavily that they were useless.

New Mexico: Top elections official says review of voter rolls is about accuracy, not fraud | The Republic

Secretary of State Dianna Duran repeatedly told a panel of lawmakers Friday her office is not pursuing any political agenda regarding voter registration in New Mexico and she flatly denied allegations that she’s targeting illegal immigrants in a review of the state’s voter rolls.

Duran, a former Republican state senator and county clerk, said she’s simply making good on a campaign promise to verify that all of the 1.16 million people who are registered to vote in New Mexico are in fact legally eligible to cast a ballot.

“I told the people of the state of New Mexico last year … that I would do my best to serve in the best possible way that I could to assure integrity in the election process, integrity in the election system,” she said. “That’s all that is going on here. It is not a witch hunt. It is not a fishing expedition.”

New Mexico: Duran praised, attacked for voter fraud investigation | Alamogordo Daily News

A legislator on Friday asked Secretary of State Dianna Duran to end a state police investigation of 64,000 registered voters, but Duran said she was duty-bound to continue it. She said the expertise of police investigators would help her office make sure that New Mexico’s voter rolls were updated and accurate.

State Rep. Richard Vigil, D-Ribera, said Duran had mishandled the case by involving police without any evidence that a crime had been committed. “I have a piece of advice for you,” he said to Duran during the end of a three-hour legislative hearing. “Bring those files back from the Department of Public Safety. Hand them to the 33 county clerks” who have expertise in voter registrations and elections.

If the clerks find any evidence of voter fraud, Vigil said, the case should be turned over to the appropriate district attorney for criminal prosecution.

National: Doubling Down on Dubious Claims of Voter Fraud | Brennan Center for Justice

As the push for restrictive voter ID legislation in the states continues, so too does the rhetoric surrounding voter fraud. Last week, New Mexico Secretary of State Dianna Duran doubled down on her previous claims of voter fraud in her state. Not only did the number of the suspected cases of voter fraud balloon from 37 to 64,000, but Duran went a step further in turning over the alleged 64,000 cases to New Mexico State Police for investigation. Noting that law enforcement will be investigating what may largely amount to data entry errors, some have questioned if investigating 64,000 cases —5 percent of registered voters in New Mexico — is a wise use of state resources.

As was the case when Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler unveiled his findings of alleged voter fraud in his state, the conclusions drawn here are questionable. While Duran has not released her methodology and analysis, her description in March of how she and her staff discovered 37 cases of possible voter fraud is of great concern. As previously discussed, Duran claimed to have found 37 possible cases of voter fraud by “matching” the names and birthdays from voter registration lists with a list of foreign nationals. She further claimed to have uncovered 117 individuals whose social security numbers did not match their name. Duran has not explained how this number suddenly ballooned to 64,000.

Editorials: In voter fraud case, officials err on the side of secrecy | NMPolitics.net

My efforts to obtain the evidence behind Secretary of State Dianna Duran’s claim that she has found instances of foreign nationals illegally voting have been shot down again, this time by the Taxation and Revenue Department.

Two months ago I asserted that Secretary of State Dianna Duran failed the open government test because she put a number of hurdles – some of them illegal – in front of my efforts to obtain the “evidence” she claims to have found of foreign nationals illegally voting in elections.

Since then, I tried a backdoor route to obtain some of the information, filing a public records request with the state’s Taxation and Revenue Department (TRD) for e-mail correspondence between its Motor Vehicle Division and Duran’s office, and all documents attached to those e-mails.

New Mexico: Legislators question scope of New Mexico voter fraud investigation | Las Cruces Sun-News

Democrats on a legislative committee made Secretary of State Dianna Duran the butt of jokes and criticism Friday, saying she had mishandled an investigation into voter fraud.

Duran, a Republican, has forwarded 64,000 voter records to state police so its investigators can help determine whether any laws were broken. Those under investigation account for about 5 percent of New Mexico’s 1.16 million registered voters.

State Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque, told fellow members of the Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee that the massive scope of Duran’s investigation shocked him. He questioned her logic and her tactics. “I sure don’t think this is a public-safety issue,” McSorley said of Duran’s decision to involve police.

Editorials: Voter fraud: Time to undertake complete review | Las Cruces Sun-News

What started out as a review of 37 cases of possible voter fraud has mushroomed into a massive investigation by the State Police of some 64,000 cases. The Secretary of State’s Office, headed by newly elected Republican Dianna Duran, has turned over truckloads of voter records for the State Police to review.

Daniel Ivey-Soto, executive director of the organization that represents New Mexico’s 33 county clerks, has derided the investigation as a “64,000-record fishing expedition.” We disagree.

In fact, we’d like to see the investigation expanded further still, if that’s what it takes to finally bring resolution to an issue that has festered for far too long, casting doubt — justified or not — on our electoral process. And, while Ivey-Soto thinks the clerks would be better positioned to conduct such an investigation, we believe only a thorough and complete review by the State Police will be seen as credible.

New Mexico: State Police to probe 64K records for voter fraud | Las Cruces Sun-News

New Mexico State Police will review a staggering 64,000 voter cases to determine if any fraud has occurred in recent elections. Public Safety Director Gorden Eden outlined the scope of the investigation during an interview last week. He said the voter files were turned over to state police by Secretary of State Dianna Duran.

Duran, a Republican, publicly told legislators in March that her staff had uncovered 37 instances of possible voter fraud, though she said her investigation had only begun.

That small stack of what Duran called “questionable” cases has turned into a mountain of files for police to pore over. Duran said her staff had flagged tens of thousands of voter records that needed “further review” by criminal investigators.