Greg Palast is promoting some plain old tinfoil hattery about rural NM. I posted a (little noticed) diary yesterday. It was a detailed analysis of one precinct in northern New Mexico. There's persistent rumors of a big voter purge in NM, and Palast is one of the most high visibility proponents of that idea. So I decided to look at the numbers. And I don't see any problems in the precinct I looked at. Someone linked to Greg Palast in the comments:
In swing state New Mexico, HALF of the Democrats of Mora, a dirt poor and overwhelmingly Hispanic county, found their registrations disappeared this year, courtesy of a Republican voting contractor.
This article isn't dated, but I find zero evidence of voters missing from the rolls in Mora County, New Mexico. We've got plenty of problems in New Mexico, don't get me wrong. But this just doesn't look like one of them. Check it out.
According to the US Census, the following numbers apply to Mora County, New Mexico:
5,180 - Total population, official 2000 US Census
5,151 - Estimated population, 2006
20.9 - % of population under 18
Calculations:
100-20.9% = 79.1%
79.1% x 5151 = 4074 (potential eligible voters)
According to the NM Secretary of State, here's the voter registration statistics for Mora County, as of 5/23/08:
4044 - Total registered voters
3206 - Democrats
645 - Republicans
120 - DTS
73 - Other
4044 registered voters; 4074 eligible voters.
Sorry folks, but that does not look like overwhelming voter disenfranchisement of the sort Palast claims. Looks to me like damned near every single eligible voter is registered. Actually looks like it might have some names which should be purged - perhaps because it hasn't been adequately maintained over the years. (Some death notices missed, people who moved away kept on, etc.)
I don't doubt that Greg Palast gets some good stories. But the few I have direct contact on the ground (he used my data from the precinct I wrote about yesterday in his book), he messes it up. In some cases, just getting the numbers mixed up, but the story right. In this case, Mora County New Mexico voter roll purges? He's got it wrong. And I can't help but wonder about his other reports then, too. The ones I have no personal experience with. Why should I count on him to get those right?
Furthermore, he provides no sources for this Mora County story. Nor numbers. I've done that here. New Mexico's old voting machines had problems, big ones. They've been replaced, and a lot of problems disappeared with them.
I think Palast uses this (inflammatory) stuff for fundraising, and more power to him for that. Me, I'm spending a few days checking his claims out. 'Cuz if it's true, we need to identify the voters removed from the rolls, go find them, and sign them up again. There's still enough time to do that, but it will take getting busy. That's why I did the work reported in yesterday's diary. But if this isn't a problem, then I should move on to something more productive, and quit getting sucked up in unfounded rumors.
The Secretary of State's office tells me there will be an update of the voter stats (link above) posted within about 2 weeks from now. I'll check it out ASAP, and report if new numbers indicate anything untoward. That SoS site says Taos County had 22,862 registered voters on May 23. I just called, and they say it's 23,368 today. That doesn't seem like there's been a purge in the meantime. Nothing in the available, official numbers gives any hint of the gross malfeasance suggested by Palast. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Looks like plain old tinfoil hattery, no matter how famous he is.
I suppose it's not a waste of time to debunk his version of the story. There is no evidence of a problem in Mora County. Not at all, not when it comes to the voter rolls. Nothing remotely like what he's pounding his chest about. It's time to move on to a new problem - like getting those registered voters to actually vote!!
I'm not saying that there's no problems with voter purges - we clearly saw there were some in 2000 in Florida. But let's not get all tinfoil hat about it. Let's identify actual problems, and do something about them. And put the rumors to bed.