Rio Rancho Elections Chief Eddie Gutierrez should be fired for voter suppression

Editor,

The situation with long lines in Rio Rancho is simply voter suppression. Take a picture of voter suppression and it would look like the picture on the front page of the Albuquerque Journal on Wednesday morning. Eddie Gutierrez, our entrenched bureaucrat and Bureau of Elections chief, has pulled this stunt before.

For those who defend by focusing elsewhere, I contend the 2004 election documented that, again, too few machines were provided to the same polls. The middle school was the focus of long lines and voting past 10 p.m. The culprit, again, was Gutierrez.

As a challenger in 2004, my calls to the clerk starting at 10 a.m. were rebuffed. It took news cameras at 4 p.m. to get machines arriving at 5:30 p.m., and still we finished voting after 10:30 p.m. Same decisions, same guy and same district.

To those who would redirect attention: The clerk is to blame, not the Secretary of State. Per state statute 1-10-2: “The County Clerk shall prepare and supply the ballots … The Secretary of State may assist in preparing and supplying ballots.” Key words here are shall and may. 

Finger-pointing about calls to the Secretary of State around Oct. 28 are without merit. Blaming the County Commission by arguing it approved the sites and machines? It was Gutierrez who gave the information excluding the fact that each machine produces 90 ballots per hour. Why was information omitted? Here’s the math: 15 machines x 90 ballots = 1350 ballots x 12 hours = 16,200 ballots produced for a population of 90,000.

Either no thought or a whole lot of thought went into allocation of resources. If it is much thought, then you must conclude bias.

If it is little thought, then you must conclude ineptitude. Either route leads to a decision that Gutierrez must be fired.

He chose not to deal with the issue and the County Commission chose not to ask during the canvassing board — a mistake by both.

After Gutierrez’s failure to explain to the press and the public at Wednesday night’s canvassing board meeting, firing is the only acceptable response. Voters should not have to endure such inexcusable behavior, and it should not be tolerated. If any one of us had performed this poorly, we would surely be fired.

Todd R. Hathorne
Daily Lobo reader