Report says NM has 100,000-150,000 ineligible voters on its rolls … and can’t do anything about it until 2015

From Capitol Report New Mexico - As Capitol Report New Mexico posted a couple days ago, Secretary of State Dianna Duran was about to release an interim report into the status of New Mexico’s voter files. Today (Nov. 17), she delivered it. In a 17-page document sent to legislators across the state, Duran’s office addresses allegations — nearly exclusively from Republicans — of persistent problems with fraud and error in voter registration and statewide elections. Among some of the statistics mentioned in the report?1) As of March 2011, the voter file contained 2,608 records with duplicate Social Security numbers 2) The statewide file has an estimated 100,000-150,000 voters on its list who are not eligible to vote. 3) The Secretary of State’s office cannot purge the names of inactive voters until 2015 because Duran’s office said the SOS office under previous Secretary of State Mary Herrera did not conduct a required program to remove voters who had permanently moved in 2007 and improperly conducted the program in 2009. The current SOS office notified the US Department of Justice, which informed the SOS this past September that a purge of voter records cannot be conducted for nearly four years. 4) There are 641 dead people on the rolls. 5) Even though New Mexico law requires potential voters to write down their date of birth and Social Security numbers on voter registration forms, Duran’s interim report says that in 2010, more than 100 voter registration applications were entered in Bernalillo County with no valid Social Security numbers. Duran was elected last fall as the first Republican Secretary of State in 82 years and campaigned on establishing a voter ID program across the state. Read more

Report says NM has 100,000-150,000 ineligible voters on its rolls … and can’t do anything about it until 2015