Throwing stones!

Today Bryan Watkins, Executive Director of the Republican Party again was throwing stones at me and praising Dianna Duran for turning over 64,000 voter registration names over to the State Police for alleged voter fraud.

For the record, when I was County Clerk for Bernalillo County, I turned over several hundred suspicious voter registration cards to the proper authorities for investigation. These cards were never entered into the voter registration system. Over 200 of these cards were delivered to the office of County Clerk, from the Republican Party. David Iglesias was the US Attorney General at that time. If we all recall, he was fired for not finding any voter fraud. Please read his book he published, I am mentioned in his book for working with him on this issue. US Senator Pete Domenci and US Congresswomen Heather Wilson, who were in office at that time, were behind the firing of David Iglesias, for only doing his job and being honest about no voter fraud. As a matter of fact, President Bush fired 8 other US Prosecutors throughout the nation for not finding or prosecuting for alleged voter fraud.

The movement nation wide by the Republican Party, is to implement photo ID. It is not fair to voters in New Mexico, that Secretary of State, Dianna Duran is claiming voter fraud to please the Republican Party. All that does is discourage people to go out and exercise what blessing we have, freedom to vote.

While I was County Clerk, I directed my Bureau of Elections Director to issue voter registration cards to employees by alphabet and verify data entry errors from the actual card to the database. Thousands of data entry errors were found and corrected. Even though we conducted these projects after every General Election in the odd year right after the School Board elections (March through August), not all data entries were found. Staff did their best to correct any errors such as a wrong number in the social security number entered, a letter in the name or address, etc. but there were times we found other data entry mistakes that were not found at the time we conducted our projects. Guess what? We also discovered that people who filled out the cards mistakenly entered the wrong social security number or wrong number in their address as well. When we contacted them, it was evident that it was a honest mistake on behalf of the person filling out their voter registration card. Guess what else? The Motor Vehicle Division staff also have made mistakes while entering data into their system. This is not voter fraud, this is human error. Many individuals change their name and addresses, and do not update their voter registration information. For this reason the Voter Registration and Motor Vehicle systems will not match.

I did not oppose photo ID for voting until I realized the truth. Not everyone has a photo ID and many Native Americans do not take their picture due to their beliefs. These issues need to be addressed before you take away people's rights, no one should be elected to disenfrancise others and take away what our country stands for.

Thank you,

Mary Herrera Cares!