Bush is on his way here. Will New Mexico be stolen?

[AspenRose]

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/an_election_spoiled_rotten.php

"If the vote is stolen here, it will be stolen in Rio Arriba County," a New Mexico politician told me. That's a reasoned surmise: in 2000, one in 10 votes simply weren't counted—chucked out, erased, discarded. In the voting biz, the technical term for these vanishing votes is "spoilage." Citizens cast ballots, but the machines don't notice. In one Rio Arriba precinct in the last go-'round, not one single vote was cast for president—or, at least, none showed up on the machines.

Not everyone's vote spoils equally. Rio Arriba is 73 percent Hispanic. I asked nationally recognized vote statistician Dr. Philip Klinkner of Hamilton College to run a "regression" analysis of the Hispanic ballot spoilage in the Enchanted State. He calculated that a brown voter is 500 percent more likely to have their vote spoiled than a white voter. And It's worse for Native Americans. Vote spoilage is epidemic near Indian reservations.

Votes don't spoil because they're left out of the fridge. It comes down to the machines. Just as poor people get the crap schools and crap hospitals, they get the crap voting machines.

[judge_smales]

1. Stolen?

If that were the plan I doubt Bush would be there for it.

[AspenRose]

3. The comments weren't meant to be connected, sorry.

At the time I posted the article I learned that Bush was on his way here today, after cancelling his Michigan trip.

It was as though the writing was on the wall that he needed to be down here to win it, because MI was going Kerry.

[hannad]

2. You've got to hold firm...

Being from Santa Fe (my family is still all there). I worry about the Land of Enchantement becoming the Land of Disenfrachisement. My dad told me something to the effect of "Bush has already stolen so many votes, I'm not even sure I care any more."

I have a plea to make to you down there: Stay active! Stay firm! DON'T let them win. Go to the polls and support people in your neighborhood. Stay involved and don't let them get away with it.

[Cybergata]

4. There are 600 Lawyers for Kerry here making sure ....

we don't get disenfrancised. There are also Moveon.com people making sure we don't cheated out of our votes.

[newyawker99]

5. Hi hannad!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast: