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Saturday, July 12, 2008

No Change in Winners of Two Races After Recounts

By Barry Massey
Associated Press
       SANTA FE — The winners of a legislative and a judicial race in the June primary election remain unchanged after recounts that were mandated by a new state law.
    The state Canvassing Board on Friday certified the results of the recounts.
    Sen. David Ulibarri of Grants won the Democratic nomination in a three-way contest in District 30. Ulibarri won by five votes. The district covers parts of Cibola, Socorro and Valencia counties. Initial results from the primary had Ulibarri ahead by eight votes.
    The board also certified results of a recount for the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court judgeship in Division 10. Edward Benavidez won the Democratic nomination by 155 votes in a three-way contest. Initial primary election results had him winning by 148 votes.
    A state law enacted this year calls for automatic recounts in elections when the margin between the top two candidates is less than one-half of 1 percent.
    In the Senate race, Ulibarri received 1,660 votes or 36.1 percent of the vote. Clemente Sanchez had 1,655 votes, or 36 percent, and June Lorenzo got 1,277 votes. The winner of the Democratic primary will face Jose Silva, a Grants Republican, in the November general election.
    In the Metro Court contest, Benavidez had 15,165 votes or 35.3 percent of the vote. Christina Argyres was second with 34.9 percent, 15,010 votes, and Judge Clyde DeMersseman finished third with 29.8 percent, 12,815 votes. No Republican ran for the judgeship.
    All ballots were hand counted in the recount for the Metro Court race.
    In the Senate race, ballots were fed back through a tabulator and some — such as provisional ballots — were hand counted. Before using a tabulator for the recount, a sample of ballots — usually 100 — were fed into the machines and those same ballots were hand tallied to determine the accuracy of the tabulator. There were no problems with the tabulators, according to officials in the secretary of state's office.
    In Cibola County, paper ballots are missing from two precincts. Memory cartridges from Election Day tabulators were used during the recount to produce a new printout of results.
    There's been no explanation for what happened to the ballots.
    Secretary of State Mary Herrera, a member of the canvassing board, said the attorney general's office was reviewing the matter.
    "It's something that we do take seriously," she told the other board members — Gov. Bill Richardson and Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward Chavez.
    To prepare for the November general election, Herrera said, her office will provide a training session for precinct presiding judges on procedures for opening and closing polling places.
    After polls close on Election Day, ballots are to be transferred from a tabulator's storage bin to a separate ballot box that is then locked and delivered to the county clerk. The ballots from the two precincts in Cibola County — both in Grants — were discovered missing several days after the election by the clerk's office. Ballot boxes were empty and unlocked.

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