Thousands fail to sign city ballots

Some are complaining about the postage.

And others, quite frankly, are hardly aware an election is under way. The vote, which was required as the result of a petition drive, is costing the city about $550,000.

Such are the challenges facing City Clerk Amy Bailey and her staff as they conduct Albuquerque’s first all-mail election in 14 years.

“Honestly, I think that people are just not reading the instructions,” Bailey said of the missing signatures.

The city of Albuquerque is in the midst of a special election on whether to change the City Charter’s requirements for runoff elections. The election is being done entirely by mail to save money.

But many voters are finding the process unfamiliar.

About 3,670 people so far have mailed in ballots without signing the oath on the outer envelope, as required. That’s about 11 percent of the roughly 35,000 total ballots returned through Tuesday.

Those votes won’t count unless the voters come in and sign them.

“I think some people who are used to voting maybe aren’t used to voting absentee,” Bailey said.

For Northeast Heights resident Cliff Goodson said reading the instructions wasn’t the problem. He won’t sign the envelope for his ballot because of concerns it would be used in identity theft.

“With your signature and address, (thieves) can easily make up checks that look just exactly like the checks you actually have,” he said.

The absentee ballots issued in Bernalillo County for statewide elections have a privacy flap that covers the signatures. Bailey said everything her office is using complies with state law.

Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy at the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego, said people worried about providing their signatures could just sign the envelopes in a way that’s different from how they usually do it.

Stephens wasn’t overly concerned about the signatures themselves.

“I don’t think it presents a huge threat,” he said. “… In the absence of a Social Security number, really, most forms of identity theft are difficult to commit.”

Other concerns have popped up:

♦ At least one voter said he fears election workers can see through the envelope to tell which choice is marked on the ballot.

Bailey said voters can fold the ballot so that the marked part is on the inside, not against the envelope. In any case, election workers are never alone with the ballots, and it would be “nearly impossible” for someone to tamper with them, she said.

The signed outer envelopes are separated from the inner envelope that contains the ballot, she said, with each going into a separate pile.

“If someone was getting nosy, someone else would definitely notice,” Bailey said.

♦ Voters who mail the ballots must affix 46 cents in postage. The other option is to return it by hand to the city clerk’s office, 600 Second NW.

♦ City Councilor Ken Sanchez said the city should have done more to publicize the election.

“There should have been some education and outreach to the community ahead of time,” he said.

The election, of course, wasn’t the clerk’s idea. It’s the result of a petition initiative, in which a coalition that included labor unions gathered thousands of signatures to require the clerk to hold an election on the issue.

The ballot measure before voters would require municipal candidates to get at least 50 percent of the vote to win office. The requirement is now 40 percent, or the top two candidates compete in a runoff election.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal