There's been plenty of mystery the last few years in the atomic city on the hill; spy dramas, missing secrets, the list goes on. But the latest mystery has nothing to do with international intrigue. It's the missing Republican votes in the 2004 Prez election. The county was narrowly won by Bush by just 500 votes, even though he carried it 55% to 41% in 2000. Los Alamos is a reliable R county. The eggheads at the Los Alamos National Labs feel they get a better money deal under the GOP and have voted accordingly for decades. This year's results were such an eyebrow raiser I went undercover, violating the security clearances of La Politica on your behalf to unravel the mystery of the missing votes. Wen Ho Lee, you've got nothing on my Los Alamos Alligators! From them, the deep inside story you will get only here:

"Bush beat Gore here in 2000. A similar result for Bush this time would have given him a 1,500 vote victory. It appears disgruntled lab employees and retirees, who support the University of California (UC) management contract, were fearful that if Bush got re-elected, the UC team would be terminated by the Department of Energy (DOE). The contract would then be awarded to the University of Texas in Bush’s home state. Employees feel threatened by the loss of the UC contract because of the generous benefit package it offers.

"During the final week of the campaign, Daddy Bush was sent to Los Alamos for a rally with Senator Pete, the Godfather of LANL. Efforts were also made by GOP operatives to douse the flames, but many employees remain upset with the DOE’s treatment of lab management and employees in response to recent LANL security lapses. LANL worker morale is at an all-time low." So declared the Los Alamos Gators.

It's got make the Kerry people sick. They scored hugely in a county they normally would have to write off, but were ignored by many of the very voters they normally can take for granted; Hispanic New Mexicans in the north.

COUNTING IN THE SLOW LANE

Perhaps there has been some jumping of the gun in lashing out at the slowpoke vote count going on in NM. Provisional ballots by the thousands still have to be counted and impatience is growing, even though the count is very unlikely to change the outcome of the Bush victory here. Denise Lamb, head of the Bureau of Elections in Santa Fe, points out that the vote-counting is not just slow in our Enchanted Land:

"Joe, every state is counting provisional ballots. New Mexico is not alone. New York state doesn't even begin to count them until 10 days after the election. The only difference is that in other states the margin of victory of one candidate or the other is larger than the number of provisional ballots to be counted. We have laws that require us to count every vote. Visit Electionline.org for news of elections in other states. You will see reports about the counting of provisional ballots in Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana and Washington State," wrote the election expert from her Roundhouse office.

Denise has a point. All the other votes, for the most part, have been ably counted. It's the provisional ballots that’s been the fly in the ointment. In past years, it‘s been missing votes, bad vote counting and bad software that slowed the count. So far, and we have our fingers crossed, that has not happened. While Denise makes a good point, the Secretary of State's confusing count on its web site has not helped matters. That is something that should be fixed before the next election and so should the time-consuming way we count those provisionals. A final note: Last night KOB-TV reported the Bernalillo county clerk is looking into the possibility of at last 200 fraudulent voter registrations. In New Mexico, it's not over until it's over.

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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2004
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