Clerks Told To Use Paper Ballots for Early School Voting    
   
By Deborah Baker 06 January 2005
The Associated Press
       SANTA FE   ?   County clerks have been told to use paper ballots for early voting in upcoming school district elections while officials determine whether voting machines from the general election can be freed up.
    Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron said Wednesday she expects the machine dilemma to be resolved by the state canvassing board next week.
    Early voting begins Friday across New Mexico for the Feb. 1 election of school board members.
    Ordinarily, clerks would have cleared the Nov. 2 general election data from voting machines by now, giving them time to reprogram the machines' cartridges for the school balloting.
    But because of a pending lawsuit over a recount request in the presidential race, Vigil-Giron's office advised them last week to hold off on erasing any data.
    "Those poor clerks have been calling me. . . . They're pulling their hair out," Vigil-Giron said.
    She had tried to schedule a meeting of the canvassing board   ?   the governor, the chief justice of the state Supreme Court, and the secretary of state   ?   for Wednesday or Thursday.
    "I think it's important for us to deal with this issue next week, at the very latest," she said.
    The board must meet anyway to review the results of a partial recount in a state Senate race in the eastern part of the state, in which Republican incumbent Clint Harden defeated Democratic challenger Bob Frost.
    Green and Libertarian presidential candidates are in a legal dispute with the canvassing board over its requirement that they pay $1.4 million in advance for a statewide recount.
    A state district court upheld the canvassing board's ruling, and the third party candidates are appealing to the state Court of Appeals.
    The candidates have proposed a settlement of the lawsuit, under which they would pay in advance for a recount in 10 percent of precincts. It would include not just retallying votes, but examining voting machine operations and how so-called provisional ballots were handled.
    Gov. Bill Richardson has said he opposes a partial recount, and Vigil-Giron said Wednesday she believes the recount law doesn't provide for the broad review proposed by the candidates.
    "I can't support something outside of the law," she said.