Unknown Number of ‘Scrap Ballots’ Counted in New Mexico

[bijou]

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.  — You’ve waited patiently in line to vote, only to be told your name can’t be found on registration rolls. Worse, they’ve run out of ballots at your polling station.

What to do?

In New Mexico on Super Tuesday, the answer was: Just scribble your name on a scrap of paper, list your preferred candidate and sign an affidavit declaring you’re a registered Democrat.

They’re called handwritten ballots and they were used and counted as legitimate during the Democratic Party’s Feb. 5 presidential caucus, in which Hillary Rodham Clinton outpolled Barack Obama by a margin of just 1,709 votes.

An Associated Press survey of Democratic Party chairs in most of New Mexico’s 33 counties confirmed reports that these so-called scrap-paper ballots were used after some polling sites ran out of ballots.

More than 17,000 provisional ballots were reviewed during the nine-day hand count that ended Thursday, and state Democratic chairman Brian Colon said he couldn’t say exactly how many were handwritten ballots.

“But if those scraps of paper were identified, if they were in there with a signed affidavit, then they were counted,” Colon said. “If it was submitted properly, then by gosh we counted it.”

It’s impossible to estimate how many scrap-paper ballots were submitted because the Democrats didn’t keep track.

“We didn’t do that,” Colon said. “We didn’t put them in piles and say ‘These qualify as scrap-paper ballots, these qualify as copies of ballots and these qualify as regular ballots.”‘

Allowing handwritten ballots might seem haphazard in an election already littered with voting problems. New Mexico’s caucus was plagued by long lines and lack of supplies at many polling sites.
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http://youdecide08.foxnews.com/2008/02/18/unknown-number-of-scrap-ballots-counted-in-new-mexico/

A Clinton benefiting from dubious polling practices? Surely not. 

[Wretched Excess]

I read a story in a santa fe newspaper (can't find the link any more) about what a disaster the NM caucus was.  apparently, the national democrat party ran the whole show, and made a hash of the entire thing.  they changed/consolidated caucus locations, disallowed crossover voting, and in general just overruled the locals and the way the things had been run for years.

I think it had more to do with giving NM governor bill richardson an early caucus victory than anything else.  at least, that was the theory.