United Voters of New Mexico - Questionnaire for Secretaries of State

Questionnaire

February 27, 2006

DEAR CANDIDATE FOR SECRETARY OF STATE,

We applaud your willingness to devote your time and energy to winning electoral office in our democratic form of government. As aspirants for the position of chief election officer in our state, you undoubtedly have your own views on the salient issues involved in election reform.

In order to better know those views, we ask that you provide us with answers to the following questions. Your response will be communicated to our fellow activists throughout the state. May we hear from you by March 15?

1. How will you support a statewide voting system using paper ballots marked by voters and counted by optical scanning machines?

2. Do you support automatic auditing of the vote counting accuracy of voting systems in randomly selected jurisdictions after every election? What percentage of votes do you think should be audited? Who in your opinion should handle these audits and when should they be done? How would we pay for this auditing?

3. What amount of discrepancy do you believe would require a wider auditing or a recount? Should the audit or recount extend to all precincts using the voting system that produced the discrepancy?

4. Would you support hand counting of paper ballots, open to the public, in both auditing and recounting? Should the state establish clear procedures for hand counting paper ballots, as well as standards for determining what is and what is not considered a vote? How would we fund the hand counts?

5. Do you agree that immediately on completion of the initial count of votes in each
precinct, a report of precinct totals will be posted at the precinct, and that such precinct reports will be tallied at the county level by a method independent of any central tabulator, as a necessary check on central tabulator totals? In case of discrepancy, is it your view that the precinct report tally governs?

6. How would you substantially reduce the unwarranted rejection of provisional ballots? What would you do to increase the acceptance of absentee ballots?

7. How will you assure that every aspect of voting is open to public scrutiny -- from selection, purchase and testing of machines, software and equipment to the final tabulation of votes? Will you report to the public all problems encountered with voting systems and what steps you take to deal with them? Will you issue a public explanation of phantom votes and undervotes?

8. In your opinion, should the Secretary of State’s office be the holder of all databases of election results and voter registration lists?

9. What will you promulgate and what change to the law will you propose to insure that paper ballots, voting machines and equipment are secured from unauthorized contact?

10. Will you see that poll workers are fully trained in the operation of voting equipment and in the conducting of elections? On Election Day, will you mandate that counties provide adequate real-time backup for technology questions, monitoring teams that spot check for malfunction and tampering, and rapid-response teams available for quick on-site visits? How would such mandates be funded?

11. NM law provides that if corrections are to be made to election returns, the District Judge shall direct the County Canvassing Board to “appear forthwith before him to complete or correct such returns”? In the 11/04 election, it appears that the Secretary of State or her contractor unilaterally make corrections without involving a District Judge. Will you follow the law in such cases? If so, how will you assure timely certification of results?

12. A true audit of an election canvass provides the auditor with access to all source data, frees him to choose his procedures, and obligates him to state his opinion as to whether the canvass “fairly represents” the results of the election. These conditions were not fulfilled in the CPA audit under NM law for the 11/04 general election.Will you support tightening the law to require a true audit of NM election results?

13. How will you encourage manufacturers and vendors to apply for certification of their voting machines for use in our state? How will you streamline the certifying and testing process so that applications are efficiently and speedily handled? How will you make sure that the entire application and certification process is open to citizen scrutiny?

14. Do you support civil and criminal penalties for voting machine companies and election officials who try to pass off uncertified software and hardware as certified?

15. Will you receive any campaign support directly or indirectly from election system manufacturers or vendors?

We extend our sincere thanks to you for taking the time and making the effort to respond to this citizens’ questionnaire.

Paul Stokes, UVNM, stokescorrales@comcast.com, 898-1237

Robert Stearns, VVNM, robert.stearns@att.net, 988-3718

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