BLAME GAME: Sandoval, state Dems disagree on process

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Colon began announcing totals at state party headquarters at about 9:45 p.m. on Tuesday, having said previously he was required to withhold all results until voting was completed. Voters at the Performing Arts Center at Rio Rancho High School were the last to finish, sometime after 9 p.m.

Colon started by announcing totals from smaller, outlying counties whose votes totals were 2,000 or less. It wasn’t until much later that he was able to announce larger counties. Santa Fe was the 23rd of 33 counties to have their totals released, what with the fourth-largest city in the state and high Democratic population and turnout.

Here is the order of the larger counties after that, with rank and largest city:

• 24. Sandoval (Rio Rancho)

• 25. Valencia (Belen)

• 26. San Juan (Farmington)

• 28. Bernalillo (Albuquerque)

• 29. Dona Ana (Las Cruces)

All but Sandoval and Bernalillo counties were final totals. Bernalillo County initially was lacking five voting locations, but those were added within an hour to make for complete results.

Reporters were told around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday that the three Rio Arriba stations and the Our Lady of Sorrows totals would not be available until the next day. But it took until Friday for the Sandoval County totals to be posted.

After announcing the Sandoval County totals early Wednesday morning, Colon provided The SCORE with a breakdown by voting station and congressional district for Sandoval County for all locations except Our Lady of Sorrows. The distinction is important because delegates to the national convention are based in part on voting by congressional district.

Three voting locations in Sandoval County – Rio Rancho, Corrales and Bernalillo – have voters in both Congressional District 1 and Congressional District 3. Colon initially said early Wednesday that the reason the totals were not available with the rest of the results was because the votes had not been separated by congressional district, which Sapien said was not true.

“When I called them in at 10:10 p.m., I gave them the numbers by congressional district,” Sapien said. “I called the state party first with the numbers, then I called them in to Jim Moran.”

Moran, the county party chairman, said he did not have the results and referred The SCORE to Sapien.

The state party office still hasn't providee the breakdown by congressional districts despite repeated requests. The SCORE requested the results after a Wednesday afternoon news gaggle outside of the accounting firm of Rogoff Erickson Diamond & Walker LLP, where ballots were being kept and counted, and in several messages left on Colon’s cell phone.

Party volunteer Allan Oliver responded to the inquiries 5:45 p.m. Friday, apologizing for Colon’s failure to return the calls because of the press of  setting up a procedure and then beginning to count the 17,286 provisional ballots.

Oliver later e-mailed the following statement to The SCORE in Colon’s name:

"On election night, we made a decision to delay releasing the results until we had a reasonable level of confidence in the numbers as reported. This site included two Congressional Districts, and I commend site manager, Commissioner Bill Sapien, for doing a thorough job on a difficult challenge."

Left unanswered was the question of why the state party didn’t have “a reasonable level of confidence in the numbers as reported” from Our Lady of Sorrows. That question was posed to Colon through Oliver via e-mail on Sunday but went without response as of midnight.

Oliver also promised to provide a complete breakdown of the county’s results by Sunday afternoon but failed to do so.

Earlier in the week, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported that party executive director Laura Sanchez  said the Bernalillo precinct mistakenly mixed ballots and figures from two congressional districts, so the Democrats waited to release those results until they sorted out the figures.

Sanchez could not be reached for comment Sunday.