.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The State Police are not conducting a proposed criminal investigation into 64,000 irregularities in the state’s voter file, although Secretary of State Dianna Duran sent the files to the agency months ago for an inquiry.

Gorden Eden, secretary of the state Department of Public Safety, which oversees the State Police, said Friday that his agency has been acting in an “advisory” role with Duran’s office but does not have the resources to look at all 64,000 cases. He also said it is more appropriate for Duran’s office to conduct the inquiry.

“This is truly an issue, a case, that needed to be looked at by the SOS’s office,” Eden said.

But Eden did not rule out a future criminal investigation, if evidence is presented that one is needed.

Duran’s chief of staff, Ken Ortiz, said Friday that State Police officials have provided his office with suggestions, methodologies and other techniques to identify potential problems in the voter file, but the police have not been looking at the files themselves.

“We’re very much grateful with what they have been able to do so far,” Ortiz said.

Duran, in a March 25 letter to the State Police’s special investigations division, said she was “enclosing the (voter file) materials for criminal investigation by your agency.”

The investigation first came up in Duran’s testimony before a panel of lawmakers during the Legislature’s regular session in early March. Duran said she had identified 37 people who had obtained driver’s licenses while they were not citizens and had subsequently voted in various elections between 2003 and 2010.

“I think everyone in this room should be concerned to hear that our elections have been compromised,” Duran told the panel after being asked by legislators about potential fraud in New Mexico elections.

Since then, Duran has characterized her efforts as an attempt to ensure the state’s 1.1 million-person voter file had “accuracy and integrity.” She has said that although her office may find some fraud in the 64,000 irregularities in the voter file records, almost all of the mistakes are likely clerical.

Ortiz reiterated that characterization Friday, saying that the State Police’s changed role in voter file issues didn’t change his agency’s aims.

“This was never a criminal type of issue; this is about cleaning out our voter rolls,” Ortiz said.

Some organizations had criticized Duran’s handling of the inquiry, claiming that her planned use of the State Police to examine the personal information of some registered voters would violate New Mexico law.

The Fair Elections Legal Network, a Washington, D.C.-based national nonprofit that advertises itself as nonpartisan, raised those concerns in a letter sent to Duran on Thursday. The letter quotes this New Mexico statute as its reasoning:

“It is unlawful for the qualified elector’s month and day of birth or any portion of the qualified elector’s Social Security number required on the certificate of registration to be copied, conveyed or used by anyone other than the person registering to vote, either before or after it is filed with the county clerk, and by elections administrators in their official capacity.”

Eden said the State Police’s role as a consultant was established early in the investigation.

Duran, however, told a panel of lawmakers in July that law enforcement had the most appropriate tools to investigate problems with the voter file.
— This article appeared on page D1 of the Albuquerque Journal