Greg Palast was on the KUNM call-in show this morning, and I got to listen to about half of it before I had to leave the car. He is here investigating the funky primary results (I hereby request that it be referred to as the 'funky' primary, mostly because I like to say 'funky.')
Palast had some pretty disturbing things to say before I had to leave about the proportion of provisional ballots in upstate counties, and about the disappearance of names from the voter rolls.
First about the upstate voters. In McKinley County, which is 70% Diné (or Navajo) the proportion of provisional ballots was very high. I wish I could remember his exact numbers, and am hoping that someone in the comments will be able to fill this in. The proportion of provisional ballots in other rural counties were also apparently very high. Voter suppression among American Indians was one of the sadder, underexplored stories during the 2000 and 2004 elections, and it sickens me to think that maybe there is already trouble underway for those populations again.
Second, the company that own the voting software and machinery apparently distributed voter lists that did not match those of the secretary of state's office. How did people get struck from these lists? Nobody knows, apparently, although one caller suggested that pre-election the SOS had purged them of people whose addresses were on Rural Routes (why? why? why?!).
Here in NM party volunteers are getting close to finishing the verification of 17,000 provisional ballots. I believe that R.C. Chapa (the host of the KUNM call-in show) said that that was 11% of people who voted. This kind of chaos foretells a scary upcoming election for all of us in NM, in which our rights might be thoroughly trampled.
Did anyone out there get to hear the second half of the show? Can you fill me in on what was said? I know it's unlikely but I have my fingers crossed.