New Mexico Declares Winner in Presidential Poll (Reuters)

[VolcanoJen]

What does the counting of absentee ballots prior to Election Day mean to the voting rights movement? Could anyone explain this to me?

5,988 votes... nice mandate. :eyes:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041123/pl_nm/politics_newmexico_dc_1

SANTA FE, N.M. (Reuters) - The final piece in the U.S. election puzzle fell into place on Tuesday when New Mexico became the last state to determine a winner in the Nov. 2 presidential poll, saying George W. Bush won the sparsely populated state.

In its official tally released on Tuesday, Republican Bush beat Democratic challenger John Kerry by 5,988 votes, Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron said. The final tally was 376,930 for Bush and 370,942 for Kerry.

<snip>

State officials pledged to do a better job in counting votes in 2004, but Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson said election reform was still needed after it took three weeks to officially declare a winner.

Hours after the official tally was released on Tuesday, Richardson called on state lawmakers to pass a reform bill that would, among other things, process absentee ballots prior to Election Day.

[JPace]

1. Well when bush opens the border gates to the flood of

(old) Mexico's millions of fleeing citizens maybe (New) Mexico Will think twice about having voted for AWOL. Nothing like unlimited cheap labor immigrants to bring down the standard of living to that of the truly poor.

[judaspriestess]

2. I thought there were already millions coming over now?

I also blame that lame duck Vicente Fox.

[schultzee]

4. If Mexico was not a Robber Barron country, the distribution of wealth

would be more fair and Mexicans would have decent paying jobs in their own country. It would be better for our own corporate robber barron administration to try to create better conditions in Mexico for living wage jobs. But not to worry our own greed pigs are trying to make the USA just like Mexico, because it looks like such a good deal to their corporate buddies. They want a bananna republic here because they hate anyone who is not very rich period. And they think they are "entitled" like somekind of feudalistic monarchy.

[Kralizec]

3. Hey, it's not like the whole state voted for *. I didn't! Nor did anyone

close to me.

[schultzee]

5. Don't you think they stole New Mexico? Hell yes, the PIGs stole it.

[Kralizec]

6. I do, I think that Bush stole a lot of places. New Mexico was one...

[Cha]

7. Governor Bill Richardson must

feel like Shit..I know I do!

[fnottr]

8. I'm sure he's not happy about Bush getting another 4 years

but I wouldn't be surprised if deep down he's kinda happy because now he might get to run in '08

[WildClarySage]

9. Personally, I think we need an open border

because in a few years, * will have weakened the dollar to the point that Americans will be sneaking into Mexico to find jobs.

[NMFreedom]

10. Damn

:mad: :mad: :mad: :puke: :puke:

:eyes:

:o(

[Spangle]

11. They SHOULD be processed ahead of time.

Processed is different then counting. Processing means checking if the voter is elgible to vote/ that the vote should be counted. The illeglibe votes should be seprated from the elgible votes. I don't know about there, but here absentee ballots have several envelopes. One that is the mailer. In side that is the voter information. Including where they sign. Then inside that is the ballot.

After the vote is "ok'ed" then the ballot is taken out and put with ballots to be counted. This way it's not known what the vote is.. Who voted for what.

The processing does take time. All that should be left on election night is to count the votes.