Posted on 10/29/2004 1:12:34 PM PDT by Former Military Chick
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A federal-state task force set up to give New Mexicans a place to call with suspicions of voter fraud "is looking at a number of things," a spokesman said Thursday, but he would not release any details. Meanwhile, the clerk of New Mexico's largest county said she planned to forward about 20 new cases of possible voter fraud to the task force today, and a Republican lawmaker criticized efforts to combat the issue in the battleground state ahead of Tuesday's general election.
"It is very disappointing that law enforcement officials are ignoring the mountain of evidence of voter registration fraud," said Sen. Rod Adair, R-Roswell. "While New Mexico turns a blind eye to voter fraud, these exact same felonies are being prosecuted in other states. Citizens of New Mexico deserve to know that honest votes will not be canceled out by fraudulent ones."
FBI agents are reviewing complaints sent to the nonpartisan task force to decide whether each should be handled under state or federal laws, said Norm Cairns, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, who formed the task force in September.
Cairns would not release how many complaints the task force has gotten or any details. The U.S. attorney's office does not comment on pending investigations.
In September, members of the task force said they were investigating anything that might indicate criminal activity in the election process.
"It's strictly a criminal investigative entity" and any findings would come in the form of eventual indictments, Cairns said.
Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera said she planned to turn over about 20 complaints to the local district attorney and the task force on today. Those cases involve people who received registration cards in the mail that they didn't ask for and which had wrong dates of birth and Social Security numbers.
Herrera said she believed problems in her county, which is New Mexico's most populous, may be the result of various registration groups paying people by the number of voters they sign up.
She said, however, there have been no reports of people trying to vote under any of the apparent false registrations.
Herrera said her office also caught 200 cards that had incorrect addresses or streets that didn't exist. Those problem registrations never made it to the voter rolls.
"I think one complaint is too many," said Herrera, who pointed out county clerks have no law enforcement authority.
Meanwhile Thursday, a top state election official said the overall number of complaints statewide is higher than in a normal election year.
Denise Lamb, director of the Bureau of Elections in the secretary of state's office, said her office has received complaints ranging from people who applied for but didn't receive their absentee ballot to people who registered to vote but never got a registration card from their county clerk.
"I can certainly tell you that the kinds of complaints that we have received are the same kinds of complaints that we receive for any election, although more of them," she said. "And I think it's because the electorate and the lawyers are very intent in this election."
Lamb couldn't say how many complaints she has received.
"We're so busy trying to help people that we don't even have time to add up the numbers," she said. She said complaints that involve possible fraud are forwarded to the U.S. attorney's office. Click here to return to story: http://www.lubbockonline.com/stories/102904/nat_102904068.shtml
It's real simple folks... Single out the suspect registrations, send them to poll watchers in the listed precincts, wait for the people to show up at the polls, have a nice policeman ask them for their ID, and then haul them off to jail when things don't match up.
If they start arresting people at 0730 on Tuesday morning, word will get out and it will really cut down the voter fraud attempts. It's too late to get them all this year but we should, at the very least, make an example out of all the people that are caught.
New Mexico's 2nd largest city (Las Cruces) in Dona Ana county has a county clerk who always manages to "find" dumbocRAT votes after the election. Happened in 1996 and 2000 races. BTW the county clerk is always a dumbocRAT
BTW you can't arrest people at the polls, because most of them are latino---that would be racist.
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