Reply #16: This might be a reason why New Mexico was blocked.

[Carolab]

http://www.rmpn.org/weblog/archives3/permalink/003596.cfm

This gets interesting -- according to the Institute on Money in State Politics website, Ms. Vigil-Giron's 6th largest campaign contributor in 2002 was one Ken Carbullido, vice president of Election Systems and Software (ES&S)...

Rebecca Vigil-Giron is a Democrat, and other major campaign contributors include the New Mexico Federation of Labor. If that initially throws you off the scent, it's understandable -- I did a double take before thinking it through. Welcome to the confounding world of American elections, where the conflicts of interest seem to wedge their way in, heedless of other affiliations.

PR Newswire, Sept 25, 2003
The New Mexico Secretary of State has awarded a five-year, multi-million dollar agreement to Election Systems & Software Inc. (ES&S), to build, deploy, and support a HAVA-compliant, centralized, real-time, statewide voter registration and election management system...

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I remember posting the other day that ES&S is a "sustaining member" of New Mexico's Association of Counties, when we were asked to research the software company that did the programming for the election, Automated Election Services aka Ink Impressions.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=283869#285026