Election fraud is now rampant in New Mexico. Our state government has made election laws so lax that now our elections are up for sale to any special interest group that has the necessary money and manpower.
 
Currently, no identification is required to vote. One must simply state his or her name and address, and a ballot will be handed over.  This means anyone with a phone book can go to the polls and vote illegally in the place of registered voters.

It happened in the 2008 election.  We have affidavits from citizens who had it happen to them.  These unfortunate voters were told they had already voted when they went to the polls, and were forced to vote on a provisional ballot that was later thrown out by their county clerk.

If you were forced to vote on a provisional ballot during the 2008 election, there is a good chance your vote was stolen, too.  

Hispanos Unidos was formed during the 2008 election cycle to promote election reform in New Mexico. We are a non-partisan PAC registered with the state. Started by Hispanic New Mexicans, we welcome all citizens to join us, regardless of race, creed or ethnicity.

We have the audacity to fight for fair elections in New Mexico.

In January, 2009, before the legislative session in Santa Fe, we asked State Representative Dianne Hamilton who represents Grant, Sierra, and Hidalgo counties, to carry a bill for photo ID at the polls.  We showed her the evidence we had of election fraud.  Dianne was horrified by what she saw, and she agreed to carry the bill.  We went to a legislator outside of our county for one simple reason. To ask a local state official to fight the system that just elected them would have put these good people in an untenable situation. We are not a hate group.  We have no anger toward the fine men and women who run for public office.  

We just want the cheating to stop.

Representative Hamilton’s bill was tabled in committee.  Dianne explained to us that the bill was dead---legislators table bills in committee to kill them.  That way, they never have to go on the record voting against something the people want.  So we did something.  We ran an ad statewide that showed the names and faces of the people who killed this bill.  We told the people what they did.  To our knowledge, this had never been done before.  But this needs to be done.  Our lawmakers must be held accountable.  

Additionally, legislation was introduced that would have made cheating even easier.  We fought these bills.  The worst bill called for same day registration.  That meant that during early voting, a person could register without a photo ID and cast a vote.  All they needed was a utility bill.  Now we all know that anyone can create a bogus utility bill on a computer.  Special interest groups could give their people stacks of utility bills and they would have 28 days to cast fraudulent votes all over the state.  Once those ballots are run through the machine, there’s no way to retrieve them. This scary bill made it through the House, but we stopped it in the Senate.  We ran ads, we had people call Santa Fe----we made as much noise as we could.

Meanwhile, several legislators stood up on the House Floor and announced that there was absolutely no voter fraud in New Mexico.  Others declared that if no one is convicted of fraud then it must not exist.  In a House floor debate, our message was deemed “dangerous” by several lawmakers.  

Overview of SOME of the issues found in Dona Ana County regarding the 2008 election:

•    We discovered that the Secretary of State reports that 69,658 votes were cast in Dona Ana County.  But our county clerk only has evidence that 68,010 people voted.  That’s 1,648 votes that are unaccounted for---enough to change the results of almost every race in Dona Ana County.

•    We have affidavits from people who tried to vote, but were told someone else voted in their name.  One is a good friend of mine.  He got a provisional ballot, but after the election he got a note in the mail saying that his provisional ballot was thrown out.  So he is one of the untold many who had their vote stolen.

•    Lynn Ellins, our local election chief who is now the County Clerk, openly admitted in a public meeting that he knowingly violated the New Mexico Election Code, by not getting out thousands of absentee ballots before the election.

•    Witnesses including the Dona Ana County Attorney agreed that there were at least 4,000 pieces of absentee mail that had not been sent by the Clerk’s office the Friday before the election.  That’s 4,000 voters who were disenfranchised

•    We have stacks of affidavits from citizens who report they hand carried or paid overnight postage to make sure their absentee ballot arrived on time, but whose votes were not recorded.  

•    Door to door investigations performed by citizens to find suspected fraudulent voters found dozens of cases where there was no physical evidence of the voter’s existence.

We must keep the topic of election fraud in front of the public.  

Our ads are done on my home computer set up in my family’s living room.  A professional marketer has joined us, and provides scripts and storyboards.  My son taught himself how to animate and produce these ads.  We use a $30 microphone we got on sale. We run all our ads on Comcast Cable statewide.  More than 70% of New Mexicans subscribe to cable television.

We are not wealthy people.  

We are ordinary citizens. We have to produce ads and then pass the hat for donations to run them.  We know bills that would allow for even more election fraud may be on the agenda for the special session later this year.  We must be ready to fight them.  No donation is too small.

Please sign up as a supporter.  You will receive no spam.  But when legislation is threatening election integrity, we will notify you and give you phone numbers to call to voice your dissent.

Rise up! Speak out! Join us in demanding election reform.

Download our petition for Photo ID at the polls and have your friends and family sign it. Mail it back to us.  We need to show our state government that our people are serious about fair elections. We may not be rich, and we may not be powerful, but there are a lot more of us than there are of them!

Our grassroots movement is using modern technology to spread a dangerous message—that the people want fair elections.  This message is more dangerous than you may know---recently, our website was hacked into and destroyed.  Bloody but unbowed, we are now back on line with added security.  

If we don’t do this, if we don’t secure fair elections, then what does the rest matter?  Like our forefathers, we find ourselves once again fighting for freedom and democracy.  Fortunately, history is on our side. American history has proved:

THE ONLY INSURMOUNTABLE POWER IS THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE.

Victoriano Serrano Contreras Jr.

Chairman