New Mexico Supreme Court Refuses Recount Unless Cobb Pays $1.4 Million

[k8conant]

http://www.votecobb.org
For immediate release: December 23, 2004
GREEN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE BLASTS NEW MEXICO SUPREME COURT RECOUNT DECISION
Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb said that yesterday's decision by the New Mexico Supreme Court, denying Cobb's request to immediately start a recount of the presidential vote, was an insult to the democratic process and the citizens of New Mexico.

full text at: http://nov2truth.org/article.php?story=20041223140648485

[barbaraann]

1. Perhaps Theresa Heinz Kerry could help out.

I don't have that kind of money or I would.

[GetTheRightVote]

2. This is just a power play on their part not to like Democracy work

I wish they cared more about Democracy then they do about the dollar. They should run a good election if they do not what the extra cost of a recount, be honest about it then.

:grr:

[Goldeneye]

3. Are they even going to try to raise that much money?

I heard somewhere that we'd get our money back if the results are overturned...is that true.

And I second T. Heinz chipping in. Kerry is in this thing now...or at least he will be monday. There is no reason for them to remain in the shadows.

[Wilber_Stool]

4. I know where they can get $700,000

just call Washinton state.

[Zan_of_Texas]

5. That's over $2 per vote.

NM Pres vote (as posted in the InfoPlease Almanac):
Bush 364,569 Kerry 353,788 Total = about 700,000


$1.4 million is ridiculous.

How about WE offer to do it for less?!?!?!

We don't need their stinkin' "help" anyway, just show us where the stuff is.

Okay, let's do the math -- 500 volunteers. Count votes in one precinct in the morning - 750 votes. Another in the afternoon - 750 votes. 500 x 1500 = 750,000. Done.

Okay, let's say you pay the people. 500 people x $12/hour x 8 hours = $48,000.

Hand count, no less. Done in one day. Let's say it takes an extra day to mess with the absentees, military and overseas. $96,000 total. That's a long ways from $1.4 million. In fact, it's 1/14.

[righteous1]

21. After canvassing is done, most all states will allow

any kind of recount you desire, ie Fl 2000. The ballots are public domain, as long as BOE has observers you can count untill the cows come home

[understandinglife]

6. Good place for Senator Kerry to spend some of the funds we all donated

[bones_7672]

7. It's called a "taxpayer revolt"

And, as a resident of Ohio, I'm pissed that we are paying for John Kerry to gain a measly few hundred votes just so a bunch of "I BELEIVE" wanna bes can cry "FRAUD".

[Eloriel]

8. And I'm pissed that some ill-informed Ohio residents

begrudge WHATEVER it takes to ensure honest and fair elections in their state. I'm further pissed said Ohioans didn't take it upon themselves to ensure that BEFORE the election. In fact, I'm pretty pissed they voted in a guy like Blackwell in the first place. But to have any Ohioan grouse about ensuring every vote counts and every vote is counted -- no matter who wins -- is, well, to be honest, plays right into the hands of the fascists.

Good for you, bones. Congratulations. You're a FINE supporter and enabler of fascists. In another era you could've been one of those "good Germans."

[TexasLawyer]

10. I'll second that!

[Vote4Kerry]

14. I agree as well n/t

[ColoradoDemocrat]

12. A lot more money is going to Halliburton

than is going for recounts! Why not be pissed at corporate tax giveaways?? Plus you need to realize how far behind the rest of the country Ohio is on vote technology, THAT'S why we're in this situation.

[high density]

16. Tell your dumbass state legislature to update your recount laws

:shrug:

[L. Coyote]

18. Place your chin on your chest. Can you see the color of your shirt now?

[righteous1]

20. Lot of chatter about a complete hand recount,

hope you don't have to pay for that

[TexasLawyer]

9. Merry F'ing Christmas

From NM
To you

[L. Coyote]

11. There are 18,000 Non-Votes in New Mexico and a Lot to Explain

This will not be over even without the recount. Let's hope it still happens. We are already seeing in Ohio that the recount may not find the real problems. Suppression and technologies can be greater problems than the counting.

Now, the problems in NM. Check out this graphic of the voting machine relationship to non-votes in New Mexico:

.

This is beyond explanation! Why is New mexico so different than other states using the same equipment?? Will counting the same ballots over again answer this?

If all NM counties had the same non-vote percentage as the 10 Op-Scan counties on the right, Bush's lead would drop from 6,000 to 4,800, everything else being equal.

Download the New Mexico election results statistics spreadsheet and take a closer look at some of the statistics. Compare 2000 and 2004. Ten stats for dozens of variables, charts, more...

[PeterPan]

13. In fact there were 21,084 undervotes and 2,087 phantom votes

calculating your results at the state or county level or even at the precinct level undervotes are reduced by phantom votes which are simultaneously hidden in the process. by analysing the data at the level of 'voting type' ie earlyvoting, election day and absentee many more unbdervotes and phantom votes appear. the new mexico certified results are more alarming than this data reveals. for example Dona Ana county precinct 106 reported 107 ballots cast and 325 presidential votes. the same county reported 207 overseas absentees that mysteriously contained 0 votes for president. i have co-authored a report based on data provided by the nm bureau of elections. i will post a link as soon as we get it up on the help america reount website.
its an outrage!

[L. Coyote]

17. Can you clarify your numbers please.

Hello PeterPan

In the official canvass, I find the following:

Precinct	382,941
Absentee	155,813
Early		236,340
		775,094

# Votes		775,094

Pres. votes	756,363

Non-Votes 	 18,731

Please explain what a "phantom vote' is.

The stats are alarming enough for me! Please scare me more.

LC

http://www.jqjacobs.net/bush/">Fraud Headlines

[PeterPan]

28. Phantom votes and their abilities explained

Hi I am Warren Stewart that hedda refers to in the post earlier and the basis of our analysis can be found the data that is linked in her post. First of all your numbers are based on unofficial totals rather than the certified numbers (there were 775,301 ballots cast for president.)

A phantom vote describes a situation in which the number of votes in a particular race (in this case president) is greater than the number of ballots cast in any particular reporting unit. Inversely an undervote describes a situation in which the total votes is less than the total ballots cast. When using the statewide totals as your level of agregation each phantom vote at a lower level of agregation cancels out an undervote and simultaneously disappears (the phantom dies in the process of killing an undervote.) However if you do your figures at the lowest possible level of aggregation (what we are calling voting type, ie early vote, election day vote, and absentee vote for each precinct) the phantoms survive and so do the undervotes. For a random example in Santa Fe county precinct 43 there were 313 early voting ballots that produced 323 presidential votes (10 phantom votes) on electiuon day there were 337 ballots cast and 312 presidential votes (25 undervotes), in absentee voting there were 304 ballots cast and 302 presidential votes (2 undervotes) so that means 27 undervotes and 10 phantom votes - but if you take the precinct totals as your level of aggregation you have 17 undervotes and 0 phantom votes - the 10 phantom votes cancelled out 10 undervotes and simultaneously disappeared. Of course phantom votes are only revealed in situations in which there are more phantom votes than undervotes - so we can only guess how many have been hidden - and how much the undervote totals have been reduced!

Please read our report and check out the data links provided in hedda's post.

[righteous1]

22. The average uncounted votes in this country is ~ 2%, most are

undervotes. Has been about the same for 30 years, actually lower now than 10 years ago. The % in NM is 1.2% not out of ordinary.

[L. Coyote]

29. The New Mexico Non-Vote for President in Not Normal in the Least

Actually, in 2000 the statewide percentage was 2.762. In 2004 it was 2.417.

What is peculiar in New mexico is the schism between types of voting machines, as seen in the graph above and this data.

2000	2004	
4.345	2.7395	Sequoia
2.212	2.5458	Danather
0.594	0.4612	Op-Scan

Compare this to other states with the same technologies.

[PeterPan]

30. While this data is startling enough

it is not accurate - the undervote rate for New Mexico 2004 was 2.72% not 2.4 as the Secretary of State might want you to believe

First of all the pct above for 2004 are not based on the certified numbers (only a slight difference) nor were they determined at the level of voting type, rather at the level of statewide results (I have explained this elsewhere in this thread.) Furthermore they do not distinguish between the two types of Sequoia machines in use (Edge- touchscreen, and Advantage push-button) nor do they include the ES&S iVotronic, used for early voting in San Juan County. By far the majority of undervotes occured on election day (17,095 out of 21,084) and most of those on push button DREs (Advantage or Danaher Shouptronic.)

It is critically important to remember that most counties in New Mexico used different voting machine for different types of voting.For example in Bernalillo county (Albuqueque) Sequoia Edge (touchscreen) was used in early voting, Danaher Shouptronic 1242 (push button DRE) was used on election day and Optech 4C (opscan) was used for absentees (and provisionals) With the proviso that since provisional votes were folded into the totals here is a much more accurate

Undervotes by Machine Type
Machine Type-Total Undervotes-Total Ballots Cast-Undervote Rate

Optech (All 4 types) 1,850 290,818 0.64%
Sequoia Edge 849 14,3803 0.59%
ES&S iVotronic 186 19,671 0.95%
Danaher Shouptronic 10,409 21,2965 4.89%
Sequoia Advantage 5,703 10,8044 5.28%


Please read the report.

[zimba]

15. What a joke. Yeah,

lets make those who cant afford to, but are standing up for the rights of basic American principles, pay for preventing the overthrow of our democracy by the fascist corporate elite. It all makes sense, yes?

[Alizaryn]

19. What the heck is wrong with their Democratic

Governor Richardson?

[bunny planet]

23. Time to open the Ketchup bottle!!!

[bunny planet]

24. I guess Bill Richardson turn out to be one of those 'lite' Democrats

:mad: :smoke: :grr: looking out for his own ass.

[hedda_foil]

25. The inside scoop on NM --- Phantom Votes! Undervotes! Stonewalling!

Hi all!

Most of you know that I've been working on the recounts through HelpAmericaRecount.org. Thanks to the astounding work of DUers Warren Stewart and Ellen Theisen, along with ignatzmouse and many, others, we have the BEST data compiled for NM that's ever been available for a recount. The data is literally irrefutable! Of course, that doesn't mean the Secretary of State isn't trying to refute it. In today's Albuquerque Journal she's quoted as saying that phantom votes aren't possible because the county auditors do such a wonderful job of auditing the vote. Yeah. Sure. Apparently neither she nor the auditors took a look at the precinct results, but our team did ... and they correlated the those results to machine types, voting method, precinct demographics and more! The evidence is straight from their data and it's absolutely DAMNING!

Here's a taste, but you've really GOT to read the whole report!
http://helpamericarecount.org/NewMexico2004ElectionDataReport.pdf

Particularly alarming are the 32 precincts statewide that reported undervote rates above
10%. Precincts that recorded presidential votes for fewer than 1 in every 10 voters are
found in 11 of the state's 33 counties: McKinley (9 precincts), Bernalillo and Taos (5
each), Dona Ana (3), Cibola, San Miguel, Sandoval and Santa Fe (2 each), and Colfax
and Mora (1 each). Noteworthy are:
• Dona Ana County's 207 overseas absentee ballots, none of which recorded a
presidential vote resulting in an undervote rate of 100%
• Dona Ana County Precinct 60 with a 36.69% undervote rate (169 ballots cast, 107
presidential votes, 62 undervotes)
• Bernalillo County Precinct 436 with a 20.03% rate (594 ballots, 475 votes, 119
undervotes)
• Bernalillo County Precinct 14 with a 16.38% rate (702 ballots, 587 votes, 115
undervotes)
• McKinley County Precinct 30 with a 16.07% rate (591 ballots, 496 votes, 95
undervotes).
Overall the 32 precincts had an undervote rate of 14.72% (10,796 ballots cast, 9216
presidential votes, 1589 undervotes) — a presidential vote for fewer than 1 in every 7
voters.
Ninety-one precincts statewide reported election-day undervote rates over 10% for an
overall undervote rate of 12.65% (20,589 ballots cast, 17,984 presidential votes, 2605
undervotes.)

-----
Our attorneys were so incensed by the Supreme Court's behavior that they wrote the NM Attorney General demanding an investigation of the irregularities. Here's the letter:
http://helpamericarecount.org/NM%20AG%20letter.pdf

And, for all of you who are just dying to see the Excel spreadsheets with ALL the data (almost 4 mg, so be prepared for a long download) it's here: http://helpamericarecount.org/NM%20State%20Data%203.6.1.xls

Enjoy!!

hedda

[berniew1]

26. New Mexico where fraud and Kerry win is the most obvious

http://www.flcv.com/fraudpat.html

[in_cog_ni_to]

27. Extortion! n/t

[PeterPan]

31. kick

[Carolab]

32. How do we get this state recounted?

Through the DNC? Kerry?