Legislation

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As reports are received, they will published here to help keep everyone informed of what's going on.

Thursday, February 17, 2005 Update

The Senate Rules Committee began its hearing of a Voter ID bill (SB40, Duran) and Ortiz y Pino’s more general election reform bill (SB718) last Friday, February 11, and continued Wednesday. The hearing were well attended and many people spoke in support of the voter-verified paper ballots required by SB718. However, the two bills were tabled by party-line votes at the end of the Wednesday meeting, pending the arrival of several additional election reform bills expected by the Thursday noon deadline.

Similarly, the House Voters and Elections Committee continues to table Election reform bills that come before it. However, on Thursday, February 17, they are scheduled to hear the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee Substitute for five Voter ID bills (HB18, HB41, HB63, HB208 and HB329.) If passed, this substitute will go forward as HB18.

A draft of the Governor’s comprehensive election reform bill is reported to be available, and reportedly fails to call for voter-verified paper ballots. HB1026 has been introduced in the House by Mary Helen Garcia, vice-chairman of HVEC, and in the Senate as SB962 by James Taylor. These bills explicitly require VVPBs and also provide alternative channels by which the Secretary of State may certify voting machines without application being made by the vendors. Section 11 of Ortiz y Pino’s bill SB718 was amended to conform to the VVPB language in these bills.

Finally, a rewrite of the HAR bill by a legislative drafter, to be introduced by McSorley (and possibly by Picraux in the House), is being circulated. This bill has many excellent features including voter-verifiable paper ballots and strong statistical audit requirements. It also calls for the creation of an election commission to analyze the quality of each election after the fact, with the authority to examine audit results and call for recounts or even new elections in problem areas.

So stay tuned!

Thursday, February 3, 2005 -- Bob Walsh

Today,

Speaker of the House Ben Lujan introduced HB742, CREATE ELECTION REFORM TASK FORCE. 15 members, $80,000, report due 12/15/05.

Neither Cisco McSorley nor Danice Picraux introduced an election reform bill today.

The House Voting and Elections Committee (HVEC) discussed bills that were of little interest to election reformers.

The House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee (HCPAC) went through 14 election bills. There was considerable media interest in the first 4 bills, which were nearly identical and concerned voter ID. The committee tabled them temporarily, instructing the sponsors to come up with one bill, which would be the committee's substitute and would be passed on to HVEC without recommendation.

It was generally acknowledged that HVEC would be coming up with an omnibus bill, which might be a complete rewrite of the Election Code. Edward Sandoval, Chairman of HVEC was present because he had 3 bills before the committee. He noted Lujan's task force bill, in the sense that it might postpone major overhaul, but said that their were some changes that were needed immediately. However, I do not think he was talking about voter-verified paper ballots.

The HCPAC discussed each of the remaining bills, but passed all of them to HVEC without recommendation. Dave Kunko was present as chair of the Clerks' Affiliate of the NM Assoc. of Counties. Several other clerks or their representatives were present. They spoke in support of several bills of interest to the clerks.

One bill would abolish reporting absentee and early voting by precinct. This was strongly supported by the clerks, but it appears that the legislators are keen to maintain that type of reporting.

I passed out my pamphlet to representatives of Common Cause and the League of Woman Voters.