New Mexico's Obama Vote is Now Official

State electors voted today for president and vice president

New Mexico's five electors for the 2012 presidential election met earlier today at the Secretary of State's Office and, following the procedure set out in the U.S. Constitution, officially elected Barack Obama as President and Joe Biden as Vice President.---

Elizabeth “Lisa” Chavez, Katherine “Kat” Duran, Tracy Canard Goodluck, Pamelya Herndon and David Thomson represented New Mexico today in the Electoral College. The State Central Committee of the New Mexico Democratic Party elected them earlier this year.

The Republican, Constitution, Libertarian, New Mexico Independent and Green Parties of New Mexico each also selected

for service in the Electoral College, in case their candidate won the most votes in the state during this year's presidential election.

Obama received 53 percent of all votes cast in New Mexico last month. Since Obama ran as a Democrat, the five electors of the Democratic Party of New Mexico became the official members of the Electoral College for today's meeting.

There were no “faithless electors” at today's meeting. Each of the five electors for New Mexico cast an electoral vote for Obama, as they had pledged to do. New Mexico statute says faithless electors are guilty of fourth degree felonies.

After the meeting, Goodluck shared a recent conversation with a law professor, who said laws that attempt to punish faithless electors, which many states have passed, lack “constitutional teeth.” Bobbi Shearer, the State Bureau of Elections director, confirmed, “There’s none.”

New Mexico electors have now served in the Electoral College for 26 presidential elections, since statehood in 1912. Each one of them duly voted for the candidate who received the greatest share of the popular vote in the state.

The electors signed six “certificates of vote” and “certificates of ascertainment” today. These ballots were not filled out in secret. The Secretary of State's Office will retain two pairs of these documents, according to instructions provided by the National Archives.

By the end of today, Shearer promised to send one pair to the President of the Senate, two pairs to the National Archives and one pair to the Chief Judge of the Federal Courts in New Mexico.

State law makes electors eligible for per diem, for mileage from their place of residence. The New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration will provide vouchers to the Secretary of State's Office, which will then be forwarded to the electors.

Electors in New Mexico are not obligated to accept payment for their service. Thomson expressed interest in per diem. Goodluck indicated she would likely decline the payment.

The Electoral College is a winner-take-all system that operates in 48 states. In Nebraska and Maine, where electoral votes are awarded based on the percentage of votes cast, each candidate in the presidential race can receive Electoral College votes.

National popular vote advocates point to the 2000 presidential election, in which Al Gore won more votes, but lost to George Bush in the Electoral College.

 

Some New Mexicans disagree on which system would provide a

or

from presidential candidates.

Four years ago, the New Mexico State House voted in favor of entering into a compact with other states, to pledge New Mexico’s electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate won the popular vote.

 

This bill died in Senate committees.

A

found 76 percent of New Mexicans favor abandoning the Electoral College.

 

Last year, Lonna Rae Atkeson, a political science professor at the University of New Mexico, facilitated meetings with public officials and coauthored a detailed report on this

.

The number of electors in New Mexico, and every other state, is equal to the number of Senators and Representatives representing the state. Electoral votes are reapportioned following each decennial census. New Mexico did not gain any electors in 2010.

As called for in the Constitution, Congress will meet in a joint session on Jan. 6 to officially count the ballots cast in the Electoral College. The 538 electors represent the 50 states and Washington, DC, which has three electors.

New Mexico has had five Electoral College votes since

.

 

Before then, the state's relatively small population merited four votes from the 1944 to 1980 presidential elections and only three votes between 1912 and 1940.

Chavez is an educator who lives in Belen. She has worked in Belen Consolidated Schools for almost 30 years and now serves as their IEP Facilitator. During the 2012 election, she was chair of the Democratic Party in Valencia County.

Duran is a schoolteacher who lives in El Prado. For the last couple years, she has coordinated Special Education at Taos High School. Since 2011, she has been a CD 3 vice-chair and Taos County chair for the Democratic Party.

Goodluck is a law student at UNM who lives in Albuquerque. Previously she held administrative positions at the Native American Community Academy and Americans for Indian Opportunity. She is currently chair of the Native American Caucus in the Democratic Party.

Herndon is an attorney who lives in Albuquerque.

 

She is currently executive director of the Southwest Women’s Law Center. Previously, she served as a deputy cabinet secretary for the state. In the Democratic Party, she is a CD 1 vice-chair.

Thomson is an attorney who lives in Santa Fe. In recent years, he was a deputy attorney general and then district court judge. He represented the Democratic Party of New Mexico in a recent case against the secretary of state.

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