Rio Arriba County did not follow state law last month when it selected a Board of Registration to purge inactive voters, Secretary of State Mary Herrera said.
Herrera objected to the County’s long-standing practice of allowing the County clerk to handpick Board candidates, and she said the County Commission’s approval of a four-person Board Feb. 26 was improper.
“We’re going to tell them to comply with the law,” Herrera said. “We were unaware they were doing that. They will have to have a special commission meeting (to re-approve the Board).”
The Commission has scheduled a meeting for March 18 to comply with Herrera’s directive.
The Board is convened every two years to review the names of voters believed to have moved out of the County and to decide which of those names should be stricken from voter registration rosters. State law states that county political party chairs “may” each provide lists of four candidates to the County Commission, from which commissioners should select a three-person Board. The statute does not identify any alternative process for identifying Board candidates.
But County Democratic Party Chairwoman Theresa Martinez and County Republican Party Chairwoman Geraldine Sanchez said they had not been asked to provide lists of Board candidates prior to the Feb. 26 meeting.
“Nobody asked. I’ve never been consulted about that at any time in the past,” Sanchez said. “I’m definitely concerned.”
Instead, the County Clerk has traditionally chosen Board candidates, County Manager Lorenzo Valdez said.
“The clerk’s always done it. Always,” Valdez said.
This year, County Deputy Clerk Fred Vigil handpicked a list of three candidates and two alternates for the Board (see sidebar).
“It’s a Democratic county so I put in more Republicans for balance,” Vigil said. “The statute says party chairs ‘may’ suggest names. It’s not mandatory. If they don’t then it’s up to the Clerk to submit a list. It’s not a violation.”
But that practice came as a surprise to Herrera.
“I wasn’t informed that they hadn’t been involving the party chairs,” Herrera said. “The law is very clear. We have not heard of any other counties doing things this way with clerks picking the Board. I was County clerk Bernalillo so I know for a fact (how it’s done).”
Vigil served for 10 years as County Clerk until January, when newly elected County Clerk Moises Morales took office.
“If it needs to be corrected, I feel strongly we should correct it,” Vigil said. “(But) in the past, both Martinez and Sanchez have verbally expressed approval of how we run elections and appointments. I just follow statute.”
Vigil’s list of 2009 Board candidates apparently came as a surprise to his new boss when it was presented to County commissioners at a special Feb. 18 meeting. Commissioners delayed approval of the list until the regular Feb. 26 meeting because state election law calls for commissioners to approve the Board at its first regular meeting in February. That gave Morales time to revise Vigil’s list.
“I re-did ‘em,” Morales said. “I gotta approve it first.”
Morales prepared a new list of four candidates and made one of Vigil’s candidates alternates. The revised list included two Democrats and two Republicans.
But instead of selecting three of the four candidates from the list, the County Commission unanimously approved the whole list Feb. 26, creating a Board of four members rather than the three members mandated by law. One of the Democrats on the list is Henry Ochoa, County Commissioner Felipe Martinez’s brother-in-law.
Herrera questioned Ochoa’s presence on the Board.
“That’s not a good idea,” she said. “You’re purging. You just don’t want to go there. I’d recommend they not do that. There’s nothing in the statute against it but public perception won’t look good when you (appoint commissioners’) relatives.”
Morales denied that his list includes political allies.
“I am not going to operate that way (but) I wanted to make it even (between Democrats and Republicans),” Morales said. “Henry Ochoa is a very honest man. He’s not going to take sides on anything. It’s just a (voter) purging list. The (Board) is not about power. It’s about who voted or didn’t vote in federal elections. We get the list from the state.”
But state law gives registration boards considerable discretion in deciding whether or not to cancel a voter’s registration. Voter registrations can be cancelled if a voter dies, is found insane, is convicted of a felony, asks to be removed from the rolls, or “at the direction of the board of registration,” according to state law.
The most common reason for removing a voter from registration rolls is that the voter has moved from the County, Santa Fe County Chief Deputy Clerk of Elections Denise Lamb said. The state provides lists to each County of voters who have changed their mailing addresses to new locations outside of the counties in which they are registered. County clerks also send out cards to voters who have not voted in the past two presidential elections, Vigil said. Voters whose cards are returned by the post office as undeliverable are added to the list of voters believed to have left the County. The Board decides which voters from the list are to be removed from voter rolls.
County Commission Chairman Elias Coriz was surprised to learn the clerk had chosen the Board candidates.
“I thought (the Clerk’s office) did consult with the respective chairs,” County Commission Chairman Elias Coriz said. “I don’t know how (Vigil)’s done it in the past (but) we need to follow the statute. I think (Morales) was trying to prevent the problem. It must’ve been an oversight. That Board is a watchdog and it’s important the party chairs are involved in the process.”
The new three-member Board had still not been finalized as of Tuesday. The Board is scheduled to meet March 16 — before three of the members are re-approved by the County Commission at the March 18 special meeting ordered by Herrera, Morales said. Then the Board will reconvene March 19, Morales said. He said it would not be a problem that the Board was scheduled to meet before it was re-approved by commissioners, as ordered by Herrera.
“No, no problem,” Morales said. “We got a letter from Geraldine and Theresa (approving the list). From now on, I’ll make sure we follow the statute. But like I said, this is how it’s been done.”
But Herrera said the Board’s March 16 meeting could be a problem.
“They shouldn’t meet before the (Commission meeting on) March 18,” Herrera said. “Now, they could get everybody (on the Board) together on the 16th to do planning so long as they don’t conduct any Board business. That would be legal.”
Herrera said Tuesday she would call Morales and County Bureau of Elections Chief Maria Elena Rodela to confirm that no Board business would be conducted before the Ccommission approves the Board.
“We already gave them instructions,” Herrera said. “We gave them the law.”