City hopes for smooth runoff

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — After the ballot malfunction and voting site confusion of the March 6 general elections, City Clerk Patricia Holland is expecting a smooth ride this time around.

Because Harry Mendoza failed to win 40 percent of the votes cast in the mayoral race by less than one vote, as it turned out he's facing runner-up Ralph Richards in a March 27 runoff. Early voting started this morning and continues through Friday. Registered voters can cast their ballots at City Hall from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Holland personally certified all the machines to be used for scanning ballots in the election at City Hall this week, then at the four polling sites around the city on election day Friday afternoon. Although that didn't stop things from going wrong the last time, other factors should.

City officials started to suspect something amiss with the general election when three of the four districts reported zero votes either for or against one of the ballot initiatives, a proposal to raise the local minimum wage to $7.50 an hour. They soon realized that a change in the ballot, to correct an error made translating the proposal to Spanish, had inadvertently and unbeknownst to anyone at City Hall shifted the position of the ovals the voters were supposed to fill in. The machines had already been programmed and certified, so they were looking for ovals where there were none.

Simpler ballots
Because there's only one race this time, the ballots are much simpler, so there's much less chance the city will find another translating error. And unless the city has to order new ballots again, the machines should read them just fine. If the city does have to order new ballots, however, it should be wise enough this time to have the machines reprogrammed.

But ballots weren't the only things voters had trouble with March 6. Some had trouble just finding the polling sites.

Polling places
Some voters said they showed up at their old polling places some out of habit, some who felt misinformed by new state-issued voter registration cards only to find them decommissioned. Some of the candidates, worried that the confusion might have hurt turnout and cost them votes, chastised the city for not doing a better job of advertising the correct sites.

Holland said the city had done plenty of advertising and that it had conducted four elections with the same sites already.

As for the registration cards, the ones she's seen were printed with the correct sites. She thinks some voters may have gotten confused by the sites the cards listed for other elections, the ones the county conducts for example.

"(The state) tried to list all the different voting options on one card," Holland said. "It's really a busy card."

During a meeting at City Hall that Holland called after election day to inform the public about the ballot error and the steps the city was taking to correct it, Richards brought up his concern with provisional ballots, the ballots voters have the option of filling out if they don't show up on a polling site's voter roll. The city takes a closer look at the voter's eligibility afterwards.

Richards said many voters were turned away without be offered the provisional ballots. Holland agreed that the city could do a better job of training its poll workers on their use.

Considering how close Mendoza had come to an outright victory March 6, some voters have even complained about the costs of conducting a runoff.

But the law is the law, the city contends, and close just isn't enough. Not holding the runoff, in fact, would probably get it sued.

Holland estimated the cost of the general election at $20,000 and said the runoff would likely cost approximately half that.