Voter Rolls Purging Not True?

(AP photo)

Colorado and Nevada officials responded on Thursday to Wednesday’s New York Times story alleging thousands of voters have been removed from voter rolls or blocked from registering in violation of federal law. The article attributed the illegal actions to local officials making mistakes complying with the 2002 Help America Vote Act and did not accuse anyone of deliberately breaking the law.

Among the provisions of the 2002 law, 90 days before an election people are only allowed to be removed from voting rolls if they die, move out of state, or are declared unfit to vote. Officials are supposed to compare registrations against state records such as drivers’ licences, and only use the Social Security Administration database as a last resort. Questionable figures seem to suggest Colorado illegally purged people for invalid reasons and Nevada over-relied on the Social Security database, according to the original Times article.

In Colorado, some 37,000 people were removed from the rolls in the three weeks after July 21. During that time, about 5,100 people moved out of the state and about 2,400 died, according to postal data and death records…Election officials in Nevada, for example, used the Social Security database more than 740,000 times to check voter files or registration applications and found more than 715,000 non-matches, federal records show.

“I have no idea where they got the numbers from,” Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman said in a press conference.

Coffman’s office provided data showing 14,049 voter registrations had been purged since July 21, including 6,572 voters who moved out of the county or state, 4,434 duplicate registrations, and 1,145 voters who had died.

Coffman said his office will review some duplicate registrations that may have been removed from the rolls in violation of the 90-day-window provision of the law and correct erroneous information given to some purged voters about how to correct their information.

“I’m very concerned by a level of hysteria that seems to be rising as a result of the New York Times article,” Pat Waak, chairwomen of the Colorado Democratic Party, told the Denver Post. “That article was not helpful to the state of Colorado.”

“I’m very concerned by a level of hysteria that seems to be rising as a result of the New York Times article,” Waak said.

“That article was not helpful to the state of Colorado.”

Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller called the story misleading. “I want to assure Nevadans that any suggestion that eligible voters will be denied their right to participate in this election on Nov. 4 is false,” he said in a statement.

Matt Griffin, elections deputy for the Secretary of State’s office, explained that people sometimes make mistakes filling out their registration forms such as writing their social security number in the driver’s license field which can require accessing the Social Security Administration database for comparison and causes their file to be flagged. Even so, he told the Nevada Appeal, “all you’ve got to do is show an ID and you can still vote.”

In an editorial siding with Coffman’s take on the figures, the Rocky Mountain News calls out the Gray Lady for stoking distrust of the electoral process:

Let’s hope The New York Times’ reporting on voter registration is more accurate in other states than Republican Secretary of State Mike Coffman and state Democratic Party Chairman Pat Waak say it was about Colorado. Otherwise, the Times may fuel unwarranted fears about the integrity of the November election…Without that confidence, Americans may lose trust in the ability of officials to conduct honest elections.

‘True-Blue’ New Mexico?

McCain’s sagging polls in New Mexico could hurt down ballot candidates (Getty Images)

Come November 4, New Mexico’s entire congressional delegation could be Democrats, writes Heath Haussamen in New West‘s “Diary of a Mad Voter” blog, breaking with New Mexico’s “purple” tradition whereby “New Mexicans may like sending Democrats to Santa Fe, but they also like sending Republicans to Washington,” he observes.

According to Haussamen, the factors contributing to the possible shift include anxiety about the state of the economy, the trickle down support drummed up by Barack Obama’s grass roots organization, and a political climate nationally that is favoring Democrats. He also notes that Republicans who are successful in statewide elections are typically moderate, which Senate candidate Steve Pearce is not, and that in the conservative 2nd district, the Dems are running a “conservative Democrat and an oil man” in Harry Teague.

The current delegation is composed of 3 Republicans (Sen. Pete Domenici, Rep. Heather Wilson, and Rep. Steve Pearce) and 2 Democrats (Sen. Jeff Bingaman and Rep. Tom Udall). After Domenici announced his retirement, the three incumbent representatives decided to seek his seat (Wilson lost to Pearce in the Republican primary), turning all three congressional races into open campaigns.

Udall is heavily favored to win Domenici’s seat seat and has enjoyed double-digit leads in polls for most of the campaign. Bingaham, who first took office in 1983, won reelection with 70 percent of the vote in 2006.

In the 1st district, Democrat Martin Heinrich, a former Albuquerque City councilman, leads Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White 43 to 41 percent in the latest poll, with 16 percent still undecided. But expect Heinrich to widen his lead, if the words of Brian Sanderoff, who oversaw the poll for the Albequrque Journal earlier this month, ring true. “Darren White’s fortunes will probably rise and fall with John McCain’s,” he told the Journal.

Pearce won his 2nd district seat with 60-40 margins in 2004 and 2006, but it looks like Democrat Harry Teague, a former Lea County Commissioner, could steal the seat from the Republicans. An October 1 poll had Teague up 4 points, 47 to 43, over restaurant chain owner Ed Tinsley. Haussamen calls the usually conservative southern district that borders the Lone Star state “Little Texas.”

New Mexico’s 3rd district, vacated by Udall, is considered a lock for Democrat Ben R. Luján, currently a state Public Regulation Commissioner. The seat has been held by Democrats (Bill Richardson and Udall) since its creation in 1983, with the exception of an almost one-full-term tenure by Republican Bill Redmond who won a special election after Richardson was appointed U.N. ambassador.

Obama’s growing lead in statewide polls and Democratic control of the statehouse since Gov. Richardson assumed office in 2003 further burnish the states growing blue cred.