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Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Poll Workers Fear for Safety

By Dan McKay
Journal Staff Writer
       The campaign for Bernalillo County clerk took a strange twist over the weekend.
    And the tale involves late-night election work, a call to police and an allegation that someone followed a county employee home.
    It all started about 10:15 p.m., when the Republican candidate for clerk, Rick Abraham, pulled up to the early voting site near Lomas and Eubank NE. Abraham was there to figure out where he could put political signs.
    But he saw two women inside the early voting site and, suspicious of the late-night work, he called police.
    Officers responded and determined everything was OK. The women had county credentials and said they were finishing legitimate election work — an explanation their supervisors have backed up.
    But the tale doesn't end there.
    One of the workers says a car followed her home from the site that night after the driver took pictures of her, and now she's scared for her safety.
    Abraham acknowledges taking photos of the workers but said he didn't follow anyone home. He said he was still talking to police when the election workers left, then went over to a Republican campaign headquarters.
    "This is out of control," he said of concerns that he followed somebody.
    County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver, the Democratic candidate, said Abraham overreacted by calling police. The workers were balancing the books, ensuring that they could account for every ballot issued to a voter that day, she said.
    The workers were worried when they saw someone in a dark car taking their picture, she said.
    "It really speaks volumes about somebody who wants to be the clerk who jumps to these conclusions without trying to get the facts first," Oliver said. "Frankly, I think his behavior is odd. My staff is concerned for their safety as a result."
    Abraham said his call to police was legitimate — that anybody would be suspicious coming across late-night election activity. The site had closed at 6 p.m.
    "It doesn't take four and a half hours to fill out a spreadsheet," he said.
    County officials said the late-night work of closing a polling site isn't secret or unusual. The clerk's office said it notified the parties in writing beforehand that they could send watchers and challengers to observe the process.
    Abraham questioned whether any political representative would be willing to stay more than four hours after polls closed.
    But Oliver said the close-out process can take that long, especially when turnout is heavy. Saturday was also the first day the Lomas site was open. The workers apparently had trouble completing their reports, and it took a while to figure out where they had made a mistake.