It is pretty clear that David Iglesias was being pressured to
support Republican voter-suppression efforts under the guise
of investigating “vote fraud.” In August, 2004, Bernalillo
County Sheriff Darren White, who was chairman of the county
Bush-Cheney campaign committee, asked Iglesias to investigate
suspect registration cards. In response, Iglesias established
a non-partisan voter fraud task force that included state and
federal officials that, he said, " will vigorously
enforce all election laws and ensure that the right to vote is
absolutely protected." On September 12, the state GOP
Executive Director wrote to Iglesias about another incident in
Bernalillo County in which some registration forms were
reported to have been stolen: “the missing forms and the
disenfranchisement of those unsuspecting voters could change
the outcome of this year's election. It's imperative we get
to the bottom of this before it's too late," Oddly, the
police were reported to have found no evidence that could be
processed at the crime site. By the end of October, the task
force received only a handful of complaints, most of them
involving administrative matters and none of them of as
serious as those from Bernalillo County, which themselves
involved a handfull of registrations. I suspect that
Republicans wanted Iglesias to take a more visible and vocal
role agaisnt "vote fraud," and to echo their
rhetoric that this was a massive problem, in order to
discourage minority voting.
The Republicans were also seeking to force first-time voters
to show an ID when they voted, a measure that would have had
the same effect. This was shot down by a state judge on
September 8. Pete Domenici responded by writing to Alexander
Acosta, assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights, to
look into how the federal government might help ensure a fair
election in New Mexico. “While no one can argue against the
laudable goal of increasing voter registration, legally
registered voters must be assured that they are not being
disenfranchised in the process." It seems reasonable to
assume that this was intended to being additional pressure to
bear on Iglesias to do something in support of voter
suppression efforts.
Pete Dominenici's October phone call to Iglesias needs to be
viewed in the context of this ongoing Republican pressure on
Iglesias in which Domenici had alreay played a part.
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