N.M. Democrats Get Apologies, No Winner [View All]

[jefferson_dem]

N.M. Democrats Get Apologies, No Winner
By HEATHER CLARK – 1 hour ago

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Three days after New Mexico voted, Democratic officials offer apologies and finger-pointing — but have no winner. Hillary Rodham Clinton holds a slight lead, but the state is still counting 17,000 provisional ballots given to voters because of long lines and a shortage of ballots.

All that's really at stake are bragging rights to another popular vote victory. Only one delegate hangs in the balance.

Based on results so far, Clinton has 13 delegates and her rival Barack Obama has 12. The popular vote winner will get another one.

With nearly 140,000 votes counted so far, Clinton holds a roughly 1,100-vote lead over Obama.

As the image of New Mexico election workers hunched over ballots recalls Florida's "hanging chad" spectacle of 2000, Democratic Party officials, who ran the election, warn that the count could last well into next week — perhaps until Feb. 15 when they have to certify the results. It took until late Thursday for the Clinton and Obama camps to agree on a process for tallying provisional votes.

New Mexico Democrats call their contest a caucus, but it's not like Iowa's caucuses where voters gather in gyms, churches or meeting rooms, divide into groups for each candidate, try to attract more support from other groups, and then count each group. Rather it more closely resembles a "firehall primary" — a primary with shorter voting hours and fewer voting sites than would be found in traditional state primaries.

It was a mess: Overwhelmed polling places with long lines, some up to three hours. Too few ballots. Confusion over where to vote. Bad weather in the north. In Rio Rancho, one of the state's largest cities, a single polling location where 1,900 people remain lined up at 7 p.m on election night.

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http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iuTr5I6fctixTRIou3hRY4wjaPyAD8UMPTC00