That missing Sandoval County caucus site has finally been tallied, giving Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama 3,584 votes (47.12 percent) to Hillary Clinton's 3,224 votes (42.39 percent) with all of Sandoval's five voting sites now in, according to the New Mexico Democratic Party Web site.

That now brings Clinton's statewide total (including absentee ballots) to 68,654 to Obama's 67,531 -- a margin of 1,123 votes (which is actually a little larger than the 1,092-vote Clinton edge reported earlier today). 

Party officials earlier said the site delayed reporting because workers there had mistakenly mixed up ballots and figures from two congressional districts.

In the new (but still unofficial) Sandoval County tally, now-withdrawn presidential candidate John Edwards picked up 11 votes from the missing precinct, Dennis Kucinich picked up two and Gov. Bill Richardson, picked up five more, making his county total 59.

Another 199 provisional ballots were added to the county's previous total of 454, according to the Democrats' Web site.

8:45am UPDATE: Results are still not available from one Sandoval County site where officials mistakenly mixed ballots and figures from two congressional districts, and Democrats were trying to sort out the figures before releasing the results, Laura E. Sanchez, executive director of the state Democratic Party, told The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, the AP is reporting, the Clinton campaign has set up a hotline for New Mexico voters to voice their concerns about the caucus, and Mara Lee, state director of the Clinton campaign, said they had heard from hundreds of voters as of Wednesday.

"What my concern is mostly that the party system broke down yesterday, and I don't want New Mexicans to be punished," Lee told the AP.

5:25am -- Clinton Now Has 1,000-Vote Lead in N.M.: Counting of 17,000 provisional ballots begins today to determine winner.

With all but one voting site in Sandoval County reporting in New Mexico's Super Tuesday caucus voting, Hillary Clinton widened her lead over Barack Obama by 1,092 votes, according to the latest figures from The Associated Press.

With 183 of 184 sites reporting, Clinton had 67,921 votes to Obama's 66,829 in unofficial results so far, the AP reported. 

But the outcome still depends on those 17,000 provisional ballots -- the ones issued to voters who showed up at the wrong polling places, didn't have their names on the rolls or asked for but didn't use absentee ballots, the Albuquerque Journal reported this morning.

State Democratic Party Chairman Brian Colon told the AP there were 17,077 provisional ballots cast on Tuesday, or about 12 percent of the state's total.

Democratic Party leaders told the Albuquerque Journal the process could take days to complete.

Party Says Counting Provisional Ballots Could Take Days

BY JEFF JONES AND RAAM WONG
Journal Staff Writers

   Now comes the time-consuming process of checking each provisional ballot to ensure it qualifies.

    Thousands of provisional ballots were given to voters who cast ballots outside of their designated caucus site, voters whose names couldn’t be found on the Democratic party’s rolls, and voters who had requested absentee ballots but decided instead to vote in person.
    But midafternoon Wednesday, ballot boxes were still being delivered to a northeast Albuquerque accounting firm where the counting will take place, and the counting had not begun.
    Democratic Party Chairman Brian Colón said the count probably will take days.
    “It is a time-consuming process,” said Democratic Party Executive Director Laura E. Sanchez.
    Some problems from Tuesday’s vote continued Wednesday in Northern New Mexico.
    A middle school in Chama served as the sole polling location for a snowy 30-square-mile area that included Tierra Amarilla and Dulce, and one voter called the Journal to complain that the distances that people had to travel from Dulce to Chama effectively disenfranchised them.
    Lydia Archuleta, the volunteer who managed the polling site, said Chama had been used during the 2004 caucus as well.
    She acknowledged that voters may have stayed at home after hearing that Chama had been declared a disaster area because of heavy snow. But she added that the roads were clear all day Tuesday, and none of the 324 people who cast ballots complained.
    One voter said there was so much confusion at Santa Fe’s Capshaw Middle School during midafternoon voting that poll workers couldn’t keep track of who had signed in on voter registration sheets, raising the possibility of voter fraud.
    Colón said that in rural areas where it was not practical to get ballot boxes back to Albuquerque on Tuesday night, it was not unusual for caucus site managers to report their results, seal the boxes and take them home to be delivered to Albuquerque the next day.
    Sen. Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, said caucus planners should have foreseen a larger turnout, given the record numbers of voters that had cast ballots elsewhere.
    “From what I am hearing, the caucus itself went very well. I’m disappointed the party wasn’t ready for the number of people who were there,” Sanchez said. “It seems like there should have been more ballots available.”
Journal staff writer Trip Jennings contributed to this story.

 

The counting of provisional ballots, which was supposed to have begun on Wednesday, is now expected to start at 8 this morning, according to a report this morning on 770 KKOB Radio.

The process will be closed to the media but will be attended by representatives of both the Clinton and Obama campaigns, party officials told the AP.

Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, chairman of Clinton's New Mexico campaign, told Bob Clark on KKOB's morning show Wednesday that as many as half the provisional ballots could be disqualified.

Which of the candidates is likely to benefit from the provisional ballot count?

According to New Mexico politics blogger Joe Monahan, even if a generous 75 percent of the provisional ballots are allowed, Obama still faces an uphill battle to overtake Clinton's still-slim but growing lead.

One of Monahan's "experts" says 3,937 of those provisional ballots come from southern New Mexico's 2nd Congressional District, where Clinton outpolled Obama 50 percent to 36 percent.

If Clinton does as well with the provisional ballots in the south, Obama would have to grab 54 percent of the leftover votes in the north and the Albuquerque area, which Monahan says is a long shot. 

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