E-mail Story
Print Friendly
Send E-mail
Reprint story
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Wilson, Madrid Race Narrows
By Jeff Jones and Dan McKay
Journal Staff Writers
Democrat Patricia Madrid cut into Rep. Heather Wilson's margin in the 1st Congressional District vote-count Wednesday night, but she also lost opportunity as hundreds of other ballots were disqualified.
A new tally of more than 900 Bernalillo County "in-lieu-of" ballots broke more than two-to-one in Madrid's favor, cutting Wilson's lead to 1,164 votes, according to an unofficial count.
But according to estimates by County Clerk Mary Herrera, at least 845 other ballots had been disqualified, meaning that no more than 1,985 ballots remained to be counted in Bernalillo County.
Madrid, the state's attorney general, would have to win about 79 percent of all those remaining ballots to pull off a come-from-behind win, according to a Journal analysis.
It would be a tall order in a race that had Wilson, the four-term Republican incumbent, with 50.3 percent of the already counted votes, compared with 49.7 percent for Madrid.
Herrera's assessment Wednesday evening held even more bad news for Democrats, hoping to ride a national, anti-Republican wave to a Wilson defeat: She said she expected the majority of 420 or so "in-suspense" ballots included in the 1,985 total remaining also would be tossed out.
That would mean Madrid would have to win an even greater percentage of what's left— or, depending on how many are discarded, could leave Madrid mathematically unable to make up the margin.
Wilson declared victory two days after the Nov. 7 election, saying the vote margin was decisive even then. Madrid has yet to concede: Her supporters have said Wilson's announcement was premature.
Wilson campaign manager Enrique Carlos Knell said late Wednesday his campaign expected to lose ground in the "in-lieu-of" ballots counted Wednesday but still is confident of the win.
"These numbers mean that Congresswoman Wilson's victory is more certain today that it was when she declared victory last Thursday," Knell said.
Madrid spokeswoman Heather Brewer said the battle wasn't over.
"Any new votes for Patsy are good news. What we like most is that the process is moving forward, and votes continue to be counted," Brewer said.
"If there's anybody who can do the impossible, it's Patricia Madrid."
With more than 209,000 votes already counted in the race, all that remain to be tallied in Bernalillo County are 1,494 provisional ballots, 71 "in-lieu-of" ballots that had to be hand-tallied and whatever number of the 420 "in suspense" ballots that are not disqualified.
Herrera at a late-evening news conference said she expected all the votes to be tallied sometime today.
A tense count
County election workers, Republican and Democratic observers and partisan lawyers for more than a week have been sharing space— and sometimes locking horns— inside the Bernalillo County voting warehouse in Albuquerque as they scrutinize each outstanding ballot.
With the majority of ballots in the nationally watched election contest tallied days ago, the focus over the past several days had been a final batch of an estimated 3,756 uncounted ballots in Bernalillo County.
A little more than two-thirds of those ballots are provisional, which are given to would-be voters on Election Day when their names do not appear on voter registration rolls or when they show up at the wrong precinct. The remainder were "in-lieu-of" ballots, which are given to Election Day voters who had requested absentee ballots but had not voted absentee.
Before the ballots could be tallied, election workers had to ensure that the people who cast them were eligible voters and that they did not vote twice.
Herrera said workers qualified 1,494 provisional ballots, meaning they can be counted.
Workers also qualified 997 in-lieu-of ballots, tallied them and released the results: 616 went for Madrid, 293 went for Wilson and 71 needed to be tallied by hand.
The roughly 420 "in-suspense" ballots are those that poll workers, during an initial look, didn't find enough information to qualify. Work on providing a final determination for those ballots had to be suspended Wednesday afternoon because the county's computer system at the warehouse went down.
However, Herrera said most of the ballots in the suspense pile probably would wind up being disqualified.
Canvassing goes on
Election workers from some of the other counties with precincts in the 1st Congressional District reported varying levels of progress in their canvasses. Canvassing is similar to an audit and is conducted to check vote totals before they are certified.
Under state law, counties must complete their canvasses by Friday— although it doesn't appear they face any repercussions for missing the deadline.
Although Bernalillo County is the heart of the 1st District, Santa Fe, Sandoval, Torrance and Valencia counties also contain some of the district's voting precincts.
Herrera said Bernalillo County is still shooting for a Friday finish in its canvass.
"We may be working around the clock," she said.
The Count in the 1st
WILSON 105,156
MADRID 103,992
OUTSTANDING 1,985
These were the totals as of 11 p.m. Wednesday. Still outstanding were provisional ballots from Bernalillo County, and some of those will be disqualified.