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Subject: Indian Votes Not Counted
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> Recipe for a Cooked Election
> By Greg Palast
> Yes Magazine =20
Monday 23 October 2006
>=20
> A nasty little secret of American democracy is that, in every national=
=20
> election, ballots cast are simply thrown in the garbage. Most are called=20
> "spoiled," supposedly unreadable, damaged, invalid. They just don't get co=
unted.=20
> This "spoilage" has occurred for decades, but it reached unprecedented hei=
ghts=20
> in the last two presidential elections. In the 2004 election, for example,=
=20
> more than three million ballots were never counted.
>=20
> Almost as deep a secret is that people are doing something about it. I=
n=20
> New Mexico, citizen activists, disgusted by systematic vote disappearance,=
=20
> demanded change - and got it.
>=20
> In Ohio, during the 2004 Presidential election, 153,237 ballots were=20
> simply thrown away - more than the Bush "victory" margin. In New Mexico th=
e=20
> uncounted vote was five times the Bush alleged victory margin of 5,988. In=
Iowa,=20
> Bush's triumph of 13,498 was overwhelmed by 36,811 votes rejected. The=20
> official number is bad enough - 1,855,827 ballots cast not counted, accord=
ing to=20
> the federal government's Elections Assistance Commission. But the feds are=
=20
> missing data from several cities and entire states too embarrassed to repo=
rt the=20
> votes they failed to count.
>=20
> Correcting for that under-reporting, the number of ballots cast but=20
> never counted goes to 3,600,380. Why doesn't your government tell you this=
?
>=20
> Hey, they do. It's right there in black and white in a U.S. Census=20
> Bureau announcement released seven months after the election - in a footno=
te. The=20
> Census tabulation of voters voting in the 2004 presidential race "differs,=
"=20
> it reads, from ballots tallied by the Clerk of the House of Representative=
s by=20
> 3.4 million votes.
>=20
> This is the hidden presidential count, which, with the exception of th=
e=20
> Census's whispered footnote, has not been reported. In the voting biz, mos=
t=20
> of these lost votes are called "spoilage." Spoilage, not the voters, picke=
d=20
> our President for us. Unfortunately, that's not all. In addition to the th=
ree=20
> million ballots uncounted due to technical "glitches," millions more were=20=
lost=20
> because the voters were prevented from casting their ballots in the first=20
> place. This group of un-votes includes voters illegally denied registratio=
n or=20
> wrongly purged from the registries.
>=20
> Joe Stalin, the story goes, said, "It's not the people who vote that=20
> count; it's the people who count the votes." That may have been true in th=
e old=20
> Soviet Union, but in the USA, the game is much, much subtler: He who makes=
=20
> sure votes don't get counted decides our winners.
>=20
> In the lead-up to the 2004 race, millions of Americans were, not=20
> unreasonably, panicked about computer voting machines. Images abounded of=20=
an evil=20
> hacker-genius in Dick Cheney's bunker rewriting code and zapping the total=
s.=20
> But that's not how it went down.
>=20
> The computer scare was the McGuffin, the fake detail used by magicians=
=20
> to keep your eye off their hands. The principal means of the election heis=
t -=20
> voiding ballots - went unexposed, unreported and most importantly,=20
> uncorrected and ready to roll out on a grander scale next time
>=20
> Like a forensic crime scene investigation unit, we can perform a post=20
> mortem starting with the exhumation of more than three million uncounted v=
otes:
> Provisional Ballots Rejected. An entirely new species of ballot debuted=20
> nationwide in 2004: the "provisional ballot." These were crucial to the Bu=
sh=20
> victory. Not because Republicans won this "provisional" vote. They won by=20
> rejecting provisional ballots that were cast overwhelmingly in Democratic=20
> precincts. The sum of "the uncounted" is astonishing: 675,676 ballots lost=
in the=20
> counties reporting to the federal government. Add in the missing jurisdict=
ions=20
> and the un-vote climbs to over a million: 1,090,729 provisional ballots to=
ssed=20
> out.
>=20
>=20
> Spoiled Ballots. You vote, you assume it's counted. Think again. Your "x"=20
> was too light for a machine to read. You didn't punch the card hard enough=
and=20
> so you "hung your chad." Therefore, your vote didn't count and, crucially,=
=20
> you'll never know it. The federal Election Assistance Commission toted up=20
> nearly a million ballots cast but not counted. Add in states too shy to re=
port to=20
> Washington, the total "spoilage" jumps to a rotten 1,389,231.
>=20
>=20
> Absentee Ballots Uncounted. The number of absentee ballots has quintupled=20=
in=20
> many states, with the number rejected on picayune technical grounds rising=
=20
> to over half a million (526,420) in 2004. In swing states, absentee ballot=
=20
> shredding was pandemic.
>=20
>=20
> Voters Barred from Voting. In this category we find a combination of=20
> incompetence and trickery that stops voters from pulling the lever in the=20=
first=20
> place. There's the purge of "felon" voters that continues to eliminate tho=
usands=20
> whose only crime is VWB - Voting While Black. It includes subtle games lik=
e=20
> eliminating polling stations in selected districts, creating impossible li=
nes.=20
> No one can pretend to calculate a hard number for all votes lost this way=20
> any more than you can find every bullet fragment in a mutilated body. But=20=
it's=20
> a safe bet that the numbers reach into the hundreds of thousands of voters=
=20
> locked out of the voting booth.=20
The Test Kitchen
>=20
> But do these un-votes really turn the election? Voters from both parti=
es=20
> used provisional or absentee ballots, and the machines can't tell if a=20
> hanging chad is Democratic or Republican, right? Not so. To see how it wor=
ks, we=20
> went to New Mexico.
>=20
> Dig this: In November 2004 during early voting in Precinct 13, Taos, N=
ew=20
> Mexico, John Kerry took 73 votes. George Bush got three. On election day,=20
> 216 in that precinct voted Kerry. Bush got 25 votes, and came in third.
>=20
> Third? Taking second place in the precinct, with 40 votes, was no one=20=
at=20
> all.
>=20
> Or, at least, that's what the machines said.
>=20
> Precinct 13 is better known as the Taos Pueblo. Every single voter the=
re=20
> is an American Native or married to one.
>=20
> Precinct 13 wasn't unique. On Navajo lands, indecision struck on an=20
> epidemic scale. They walked in, they didn't vote. In nine precincts in McK=
inley=20
> County, New Mexico, which is 74.7 percent Navajo, fewer than one in ten vo=
ters=20
> picked a president. Those who voted on paper ballots early or absentee kne=
w=20
> who they wanted (Kerry, overwhelmingly), but the machine-counted vote said=
=20
> Indians simply couldn't make up their minds or just plain didn't care.
>=20
> On average, across the state, the machine printouts say that 7.3 perce=
nt=20
> - one in twelve voters - in majority Native precincts didn't vote for=20
> president. That's three times the percentage of white voters who appeared=20=
to=20
> abstain. In pueblo after pueblo, on reservation after reservation througho=
ut the=20
> United States, the story was the same.
>=20
> Nationally, one out of every 12 ballots cast by Native Americans did n=
ot=20
> contain a vote for President. Indians by the thousands drove to the voting=
=20
> station, walked into the booth, said, "Who cares?" and walked out without=20
> voting for president.
>=20
> So we dropped in on Taos, Precinct 13. The "old" pueblo is old indeed-=
=20
> built 500 to 1,000 years ago. In these adobe dwellings stacked like mud=20
> condos, no electricity is allowed nor running water - nor Republicans as f=
ar as=20
> records show. Richard Archuleta, a massive man with long, gray pigtails an=
d=20
> hands as big as flank steaks, is the head of tourism for the pueblo. Richa=
rd=20
> wasn't buying the indecision theory of the Native non-count. Indians were=20=
worried=20
> about their Bureau of Indian Affairs grants, their gaming licenses, and=20
> working conditions at their other big employer: the U.S. military.
>=20
> On the pueblo's mud-brick walls there were several hand painted signs=20
> announcing Democratic Party powwows, none for Republicans. Indecisive? Ind=
ians=20
> are Democrats. Case closed. The color that counts. It wasn't just Native=20
> Americans who couldn't seem to pick a President. Throughout New Mexico,=20
> indecisiveness was pandemic ... at least, that is, among people of color.=20=
Or so the=20
> machines said. Across the state, high-majority Hispanic precincts recorded=
a=20
> 7.1 percent vote for nobody for president.
>=20
> We asked Dr. Philip Klinkner, the expert who ran stats for the U.S.=20
> Civil Rights Commission, to look at the New Mexico data. His solid statist=
ical=20
> analysis discovered that if you're Hispanic, the chance your vote will not=
=20
> record on the machine was 500% higher than if you are white. For Natives,=20=
it's=20
> off the charts. The Hispanic and Native vote is no small potatoes. Every t=
enth=20
> New Mexican is American Native (9.5 percent) and half the remaining=20
> population (43 percent) is Mexican-American.
>=20
> Our team drove an hour across the high desert from the Taos Reservatio=
n=20
> to Espa=F1ola in Rio Arriba County. According to the official tallies, ent=
ire=20
> precincts of Mexican-Americans registered few or zero votes for president=20=
in=20
> the last two elections. Espa=F1ola is where the Los Alamos workers live, n=
ot the=20
> Ph.D.s in the white lab coats, but the women who clean the hallways and th=
e=20
> men who bury the toxins. This was not Bush country, and the people we met=20
> with, including the leaders of the get-out-the-vote operations, knew of no=
=20
> Hispanics who insisted on waiting at the polling station to cast their vot=
e for=20
> "nobody for President." The huge majority of Mexican- Americans, especiall=
y in=20
> New Mexico, and a crushing majority of Natives (over 90 percent), vote=20
> Democratic.
>=20
> What if those voters weren't indecisive; what if they punched in a=20
> choice and it didn't record? Let's do the arithmetic. As minority voters c=
ast 89=20
> percent of the state's 21,084 blank ballots, that's 18,765 missing minorit=
y=20
> votes. Given the preferences of other voters in those pueblos and barrios,=
=20
> those 18,765 voters of color should have swamped Bush's 5,988 vote "majori=
ty"=20
> with Kerry votes. But that would have required those votes be counted.
>=20
> The Voting-Industrial Complex
>=20
> New Mexico's Secretary of State, Rebecca Vigil-Giron, seemed curiously=
=20
> uncurious about Hispanic and Native precincts where nearly one in ten vote=
rs=20
> couldn't be bothered to choose a president.
>=20
> Vigil-Giron, along with Governor Bill Richardson, not only stopped any=
=20
> attempt at a recount directly following the election, but demanded that al=
l=20
> the machines be wiped clean. This not only concealed evidence of potential=
=20
> fraud but destroyed it. In 2006, New Mexico's Supreme Court ruled the Secr=
etary=20
> of State's machine-cleaning job illegal - too late to change the outcome o=
f=20
> the election, of course.
>=20
> But who are we to second-guess Secretary Vigil-Giron? After all, she i=
s=20
> a big shot, at the time president, no less, of the National Association of=
=20
> Secretaries of State, the top banana of all our nation's elections officia=
ls.
>=20
> Vigil-Giron, after putting a stop to the recount, rather than schlep o=
ut=20
> to investigate the missing vote among the iguanas and Navajos, left the=20
> state to officiate at a dinner meeting in Minneapolis for her national=20
> association. It was held on a dinner boat. The tab for the moonlight ride=20=
was picked up=20
> by touch-screen voting machine maker ES&S Corporation. Breakfast, in case=20
> you're curious, was served by touchscreen maker Diebold Corp.
>=20
> At the time of this writing, Vigil-Giron is busy planning the next big=
=20
> confab of vendors and state officials - this time in Santa Fe, "the city=20
> different." But aside from Wal-Mart signing on as a sponsor, nothing much=20=
is=20
> different when it comes to the inner workings of the voting industrial com=
plex.
>=20
> Except for one thing.
>=20
> Where's the Action?
>=20
> While Vigil-Giron is greeting her fellow Secretaries and casually=20
> introducing them to this year's vendors, it is likely she'll keep quiet ab=
out a few=20
> things. Voter Action, a group of motivated citizens, some jumping into=20
> activism for the first time, sued the state of New Mexico in 2005 over the=
bad=20
> machines and the failure to count the vote. The activists ran a public cam=
paign=20
> with their revelations about New Mexico's broken democracy. Last year, Vot=
er=20
> Action invited our investigations team to lay out our findings to huge=20
> citizens' meetings in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Soon, the whole horrid vot=
e-losing=20
> game was on local community radio and TV stations. It worked.
>=20
> Governor Richardson, who ducked the issue for three years, and his=20
> Secretary of State, once openly hostile to reform, had to relent in the fa=
ce of=20
> the public uprising. In February of 2006, Richardson signed a model law=20
> requiring that all voting in the state take place on new paper ballot mach=
ines, with=20
> verifiable tabulating systems. Richardson now claims the mantle of leader=20=
of=20
> the voting reform campaign.
>=20
> Voter Action, successful in New Mexico, is now pursuing lawsuits in=20
> seven states to stop the Secretaries of State from purchasing electronic v=
oting=20
> systems which have records of inaccuracy, security risks, and have been pr=
oven=20
> unreliable.
>=20
> In New Mexico we learned, once again, that the price of liberty is=20
> eternal vigilance. To protect your right to vote, you must know what is ha=
ppening=20
> in your state - before, during, and after Election Day - and be willing to=
=20
> hold your leaders accountable.
>=20
>=20
=20
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<HTML><FONT FACE=3Darial,helvetica><HTML><FONT SIZE=3D2 PTSIZE=3D10><BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=3DCITE style=3D"BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT=
: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px"><B>Recipe for a Cooked Election=
</B><BR>
By Greg Palast<BR>
Yes Magazine </FONT><FONT COLOR=3D"#00=
0000" BACK=3D"#ffffff" style=3D"BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=3D2 PTSIZE=
=3D10 FAMILY=3D"SANSSERIF" FACE=3D"Arial" LANG=3D"0"></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
</FONT><FONT COLOR=3D"#000000" BACK=3D"#ffffff" style=3D"BACKGROUND-COLOR:=20=
#ffffff" SIZE=3D2 PTSIZE=3D10 FAMILY=3D"SANSSERIF" FACE=3D"Arial" LANG=3D"0"=
><BR>
Monday 23 October 2006</FONT><FONT COL=
OR=3D"#000000" BACK=3D"#ffffff" style=3D"BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=3D2=
PTSIZE=3D10 FAMILY=3D"SANSSERIF" FACE=3D"Arial" LANG=3D"0"><BR>
</FONT><FONT COLOR=3D"#000000" BACK=3D"#ffffff" style=3D"BACKGROUND-COLOR:=20=
#ffffff" SIZE=3D2 PTSIZE=3D10 FAMILY=3D"SANSSERIF" FACE=3D"Arial" LANG=3D"0"=
><BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=3DCITE style=3D"BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEF=
T: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px"><BR>
A nasty little secret of American democracy is that, in e=
very national election, ballots cast are simply thrown in the garbage. Most=20=
are called "spoiled," supposedly unreadable, damaged, invalid. They just don=
't get counted. This "spoilage" has occurred for decades, but it reached unp=
recedented heights in the last two presidential elections. In the 2004 elect=
ion, for example, more than three million ballots were never counted.<BR>
<BR>
Almost as deep a secret is that people are doing somethin=
g about it. In New Mexico, citizen activists, disgusted by systematic vote d=
isappearance, demanded change - and got it.<BR>
<BR>
In Ohio, during the 2004 Presidential election, 153,237 b=
allots were simply thrown away - more than the Bush "victory" margin. In New=
Mexico the uncounted vote was five times the Bush alleged victory margin of=
5,988. In Iowa, Bush's triumph of 13,498 was overwhelmed by 36,811 votes re=
jected. The official number is bad enough - 1,855,827 ballots cast not count=
ed, according to the federal government's Elections Assistance Commission. B=
ut the feds are missing data from several cities and entire states too embar=
rassed to report the votes they failed to count.<BR>
<BR>
Correcting for that under-reporting, the number of ballot=
s cast but never counted goes to 3,600,380. Why doesn't your government tell=
you this?<BR>
<BR>
Hey, they do. It's right there in black and white in a U.=
S. Census Bureau announcement released seven months after the election - in=20=
a footnote. The Census tabulation of voters voting in the 2004 presidential=20=
race "differs," it reads, from ballots tallied by the Clerk of the House of=20=
Representatives by 3.4 million votes.<BR>
<BR>
This is the hidden presidential count, which, with the ex=
ception of the Census's whispered footnote, has not been reported. In the vo=
ting biz, most of these lost votes are called "spoilage." Spoilage, not the=20=
voters, picked our President for us. Unfortunately, that's not all. In addit=
ion to the three million ballots uncounted due to technical "glitches," mill=
ions more were lost because the voters were prevented from casting their bal=
lots in the first place. This group of un-votes includes voters illegally de=
nied registration or wrongly purged from the registries.<BR>
<BR>
Joe Stalin, the story goes, said, "It's not the people wh=
o vote that count; it's the people who count the votes." That may have been=20=
true in the old Soviet Union, but in the USA, the game is much, much subtler=
: He who makes sure votes don't get counted decides our winners.<BR>
<BR>
In the lead-up to the 2004 race, millions of Americans we=
re, not unreasonably, panicked about computer voting machines. Images abound=
ed of an evil hacker-genius in Dick Cheney's bunker rewriting code and zappi=
ng the totals. But that's not how it went down.<BR>
<BR>
The computer scare was the McGuffin, the fake detail used=
by magicians to keep your eye off their hands. The principal means of the e=
lection heist - voiding ballots - went unexposed, unreported and most import=
antly, uncorrected and ready to roll out on a grander scale next time<BR>
<BR>
Like a forensic crime scene investigation unit, we can pe=
rform a post mortem starting with the exhumation of more than three million=20=
uncounted votes:</FONT><FONT COLOR=3D"#000000" BACK=3D"#ffffff" style=3D"BA=
CKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=3D2 PTSIZE=3D10 FAMILY=3D"SANSSERIF" FACE=3D"A=
rial" LANG=3D"0"></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
<BR>
</FONT><FONT COLOR=3D"#000000" BACK=3D"#ffffff" style=3D"BACKGROUND-COLOR:=20=
#ffffff" SIZE=3D2 PTSIZE=3D10 FAMILY=3D"SANSSERIF" FACE=3D"Arial" LANG=3D"0"=
><BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=3DCITE style=3D"BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEF=
T: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px"><B>Provisional Ballots Rejecte=
d.</B> An entirely new species of ballot debuted nationwide in 2004: the "pr=
ovisional ballot." These were crucial to the Bush victory. Not because Repub=
licans won this "provisional" vote. They won by rejecting provisional ballot=
s that were cast overwhelmingly in Democratic precincts. The sum of "the unc=
ounted" is astonishing: 675,676 ballots lost in the counties reporting to th=
e federal government. Add in the missing jurisdictions and the un-vote climb=
s to over a million: 1,090,729 provisional ballots tossed out.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<B>Spoiled Ballots.</B> You vote, you assume it's counted. Think again. Your=
"x" was too light for a machine to read. You didn't punch the card hard eno=
ugh and so you "hung your chad." Therefore, your vote didn't count and, cruc=
ially, you'll never know it. The federal Election Assistance Commission tote=
d up nearly a million ballots cast but not counted. Add in states too shy to=
report to Washington, the total "spoilage" jumps to a rotten 1,389,231.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<B>Absentee Ballots Uncounted.</B> The number of absentee ballots has quintu=
pled in many states, with the number rejected on picayune technical grounds=20=
rising to over half a million (526,420) in 2004. In swing states, absentee b=
allot shredding was pandemic.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<B>Voters Barred from Voting.</B> In this category we find a combination of=20=
incompetence and trickery that stops voters from pulling the lever in the fi=
rst place. There's the purge of "felon" voters that continues to eliminate t=
housands whose only crime is VWB - Voting While Black. It includes subtle ga=
mes like eliminating polling stations in selected districts, creating imposs=
ible lines. No one can pretend to calculate a hard number for all votes lost=
this way any more than you can find every bullet fragment in a mutilated bo=
dy. But it's a safe bet that the numbers reach into the hundreds of thousand=
s of voters locked out of the voting booth. </FONT><FONT COLOR=3D"#000000"=20=
BACK=3D"#ffffff" style=3D"BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=3D2 PTSIZE=3D10 FA=
MILY=3D"SANSSERIF" FACE=3D"Arial" LANG=3D"0"></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
<BR>
</FONT><FONT COLOR=3D"#000000" BACK=3D"#ffffff" style=3D"BACKGROUND-COLOR:=20=
#ffffff" SIZE=3D2 PTSIZE=3D10 FAMILY=3D"SANSSERIF" FACE=3D"Arial" LANG=3D"0"=
> <B>The Test Kitchen</FONT><FONT COLOR=3D"#000000" BACK=3D"#ff=
ffff" style=3D"BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=3D2 PTSIZE=3D10 FAMILY=3D"SAN=
SSERIF" FACE=3D"Arial" LANG=3D"0"></B><BR>
</FONT><FONT COLOR=3D"#000000" BACK=3D"#ffffff" style=3D"BACKGROUND-COLOR:=20=
#ffffff" SIZE=3D2 PTSIZE=3D10 FAMILY=3D"SANSSERIF" FACE=3D"Arial" LANG=3D"0"=
><BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=3DCITE style=3D"BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEF=
T: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px"><BR>
But do these un-votes really turn the election? Voters fr=
om both parties used provisional or absentee ballots, and the machines can't=
tell if a hanging chad is Democratic or Republican, right? Not so. To see h=
ow it works, we went to New Mexico.<BR>
<BR>
Dig this: In November 2004 during early voting in Precinc=
t 13, Taos, New Mexico, John Kerry took 73 votes. George Bush got three. On=20=
election day, 216 in that precinct voted Kerry. Bush got 25 votes, and came=20=
in third.<BR>
<BR>
Third? Taking second place in the precinct, with 40 votes=
, was no one at all.<BR>
<BR>
Or, at least, that's what the machines said.<BR>
<BR>
Precinct 13 is better known as the Taos Pueblo. Every sin=
gle voter there is an American Native or married to one.<BR>
<BR>
Precinct 13 wasn't unique. On Navajo lands, indecision st=
ruck on an epidemic scale. They walked in, they didn't vote. In nine precinc=
ts in McKinley County, New Mexico, which is 74.7 percent Navajo, fewer than=20=
one in ten voters picked a president. Those who voted on paper ballots early=
or absentee knew who they wanted (Kerry, overwhelmingly), but the machine-c=
ounted vote said Indians simply couldn't make up their minds or just plain d=
idn't care.<BR>
<BR>
On average, across the state, the machine printouts say t=
hat 7.3 percent - one in twelve voters - in majority Native precincts didn't=
vote for president. That's three times the percentage of white voters who a=
ppeared to abstain. In pueblo after pueblo, on reservation after reservation=
throughout the United States, the story was the same.<BR>
<BR>
Nationally, one out of every 12 ballots cast by Native Am=
ericans did not contain a vote for President. Indians by the thousands drove=
to the voting station, walked into the booth, said, "Who cares?" and walked=
out without voting for president.<BR>
<BR>
So we dropped in on Taos, Precinct 13. The "old" pueblo i=
s old indeed- built 500 to 1,000 years ago. In these adobe dwellings stacked=
like mud condos, no electricity is allowed nor running water - nor Republic=
ans as far as records show. Richard Archuleta, a massive man with long, gray=
pigtails and hands as big as flank steaks, is the head of tourism for the p=
ueblo. Richard wasn't buying the indecision theory of the Native non-count.=20=
Indians were worried about their Bureau of Indian Affairs grants, their gami=
ng licenses, and working conditions at their other big employer: the U.S. mi=
litary.<BR>
<BR>
On the pueblo's mud-brick walls there were several hand p=
ainted signs announcing Democratic Party powwows, none for Republicans. Inde=
cisive? Indians are Democrats. Case closed. The color that counts. It wasn't=
just Native Americans who couldn't seem to pick a President. Throughout New=
Mexico, indecisiveness was pandemic ... at least, that is, among people of=20=
color. Or so the machines said. Across the state, high-majority Hispanic pre=
cincts recorded a 7.1 percent vote for nobody for president.<BR>
<BR>
We asked Dr. Philip Klinkner, the expert who ran stats fo=
r the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, to look at the New Mexico data. His soli=
d statistical analysis discovered that if you're Hispanic, the chance your v=
ote will not record on the machine was 500% higher than if you are white. Fo=
r Natives, it's off the charts. The Hispanic and Native vote is no small pot=
atoes. Every tenth New Mexican is American Native (9.5 percent) and half the=
remaining population (43 percent) is Mexican-American.<BR>
<BR>
Our team drove an hour across the high desert from the Ta=
os Reservation to Espa=F1ola in Rio Arriba County. According to the official=
tallies, entire precincts of Mexican-Americans registered few or zero votes=
for president in the last two elections. Espa=F1ola is where the Los Alamos=
workers live, not the Ph.D.s in the white lab coats, but the women who clea=
n the hallways and the men who bury the toxins. This was not Bush country, a=
nd the people we met with, including the leaders of the get-out-the-vote ope=
rations, knew of no Hispanics who insisted on waiting at the polling station=
to cast their vote for "nobody for President." The huge majority of Mexican=
- Americans, especially in New Mexico, and a crushing majority of Natives (o=
ver 90 percent), vote Democratic.<BR>
<BR>
What if those voters weren't indecisive; what if they pun=
ched in a choice and it didn't record? Let's do the arithmetic. As minority=20=
voters cast 89 percent of the state's 21,084 blank ballots, that's 18,765 mi=
ssing minority votes. Given the preferences of other voters in those pueblos=
and barrios, those 18,765 voters of color should have swamped Bush's 5,988=20=
vote "majority" with Kerry votes. But that would have required those votes b=
e counted.<BR>
<BR>
<B>The Voting-Industrial Complex</B><BR>
<BR>
New Mexico's Secretary of State, Rebecca Vigil-Giron, see=
med curiously uncurious about Hispanic and Native precincts where nearly one=
in ten voters couldn't be bothered to choose a president.<BR>
<BR>
Vigil-Giron, along with Governor Bill Richardson, not onl=
y stopped any attempt at a recount directly following the election, but dema=
nded that all the machines be wiped clean. This not only concealed evidence=20=
of potential fraud but destroyed it. In 2006, New Mexico's Supreme Court rul=
ed the Secretary of State's machine-cleaning job illegal - too late to chang=
e the outcome of the election, of course.<BR>
<BR>
But who are we to second-guess Secretary Vigil-Giron? Aft=
er all, she is a big shot, at the time president, no less, of the National A=
ssociation of Secretaries of State, the top banana of all our nation's elect=
ions officials.<BR>
<BR>
Vigil-Giron, after putting a stop to the recount, rather=20=
than schlep out to investigate the missing vote among the iguanas and Navajo=
s, left the state to officiate at a dinner meeting in Minneapolis for her na=
tional association. It was held on a dinner boat. The tab for the moonlight=20=
ride was picked up by touch-screen voting machine maker ES&S Corporation=
Breakfast, in case you're curious, was served by touchscreen maker Diebold=
Corp.<BR>
<BR>
At the time of this writing, Vigil-Giron is busy planning=
the next big confab of vendors and state officials - this time in Santa Fe,=
"the city different." But aside from Wal-Mart signing on as a sponsor, noth=
ing much is different when it comes to the inner workings of the voting indu=
strial complex.<BR>
<BR>
Except for one thing.<BR>
<BR>
<B>Where's the Action?</B><BR>
<BR>
While Vigil-Giron is greeting her fellow Secretaries and=20=
casually introducing them to this year's vendors, it is likely she'll keep q=
uiet about a few things. Voter Action, a group of motivated citizens, some j=
umping into activism for the first time, sued the state of New Mexico in 200=
5 over the bad machines and the failure to count the vote. The activists ran=
a public campaign with their revelations about New Mexico's broken democrac=
y. Last year, Voter Action invited our investigations team to lay out our fi=
ndings to huge citizens' meetings in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Soon, the who=
le horrid vote-losing game was on local community radio and TV stations. It=20=
worked.<BR>
<BR>
Governor Richardson, who ducked the issue for three years=
, and his Secretary of State, once openly hostile to reform, had to relent i=
n the face of the public uprising. In February of 2006, Richardson signed a=20=
model law requiring that all voting in the state take place on new paper bal=
lot machines, with verifiable tabulating systems. Richardson now claims the=20=
mantle of leader of the voting reform campaign.<BR>
<BR>
Voter Action, successful in New Mexico, is now pursuing l=
awsuits in seven states to stop the Secretaries of State from purchasing ele=
ctronic voting systems which have records of inaccuracy, security risks, and=
have been proven unreliable.<BR>
<BR>
In New Mexico we learned, once again, that the price of l=
iberty is eternal vigilance. To protect your right to vote, you must know wh=
at is happening in your state - before, during, and after Election Day - and=
be willing to hold your leaders accountable.<BR>
<BR>
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