Is There Something Rotten In The State Of New Mexico?  Did Governor Bill Richardson Support George W. Bush in 2004?

   It is no secret that Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico has presidential ambitions.  The highest elected Hispanic official in the United States, many knowledgeable observers touted Richardson for Vice-President to run with John Kerry. And if Kerry had chosen Bill Richardson it is more likely that Kerry would have won.

   Once Kerry chose Senator John Edwards, it was pretty obvious that if Kerry won, Richardson would have to wait another eight years, if not more, for another crack at national office.  Maybe Richardson felt it would be in his own personal interest for George W. Bush to win another term, then he would definitely have a shot at national office in just four years.

   In 2000, Al Gore carried New Mexico by the smallest margin of any state that he won.  Gore got 286,738 to Bush's 286,417; a margin of just 321.  In 2004, Bush carried New Mexico by just 6,988;  376,930 to Kerry's 370,942.

    An undervote of about 1% is normal in presidential election.  When the percentage hits 2%, it's time to start looking for mechanical error or fraud.  In 2004, New Mexico had a presidential undervote of 2.45%.  This undervote ranged from a low of 0.26% in Curry County to a high of 8.39% in DeBaca County.  Strangely, the presidential undervote rises from 0.26% to 0.77% over 12 counties, and then jumps to 2.03%. (See chart at the bottom.)

   New Mexico has 33 counties.  The 14 counties with the lowest presidential undervote went for Bush.  Of the 23 counties with the lowest presidential undervote, 19 went for Bush and 4 went for Kerry.  Of the other 10 counties with the highest presidential undervote, 8 went for Kerry and only 2 went for Bush.  The highest county, DeBaca, had just 1084 voters, less than 0.2% of the total vote.

   Perhaps Kerry voters are more incompetent than Bush voters, especially since New Mexico still used old optical scanning equipment in 2004.  A more careful analysis of the undervote in the big counties would be necessary to see if the Bush precincts have consistently lower presidential undervotes than the Kerry precincts.

   But even on the county level, the discrepancy in undervotes was responsible for over 1,000 of Kerry's 7,000 vote deficit in New Mexico.  While this was not enough to cost Kerry the state, and even winning the state would not have won Kerry the election, the high presidential undervote and, more importantly, the wide variation between counties of up to 30 times, shows that New Mexico, like Florida in 2000, needs fixing. 

   Whether the low presidential undervote in the Bush counties compared to the Kerry counties is a sign of deliberate manipulation by the authorities running the election, it is impossible to tell without more investigation.  But the pattern suggests it is not random and that someone may have been trying to skew the New Mexico results to Bush's benefit.  Seeing as Bill Richardson was the Governor of New Mexico during the 2004 presidential election, and seeing as Bill Richardson has presidential ambitions of his own, Bill Richardson is a prime suspect.

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Contact: Joshua Leinsdorf