Legal Commentary

New Mexico to Start Counting Provisional Ballots

By Jeralyn

Election results are so close in New Mexico that tomorrow morning, officials will begin hand-counting 17,000 provisional ballots.

Provisional ballots are given to voters who show up to the wrong site, whose names are not on registered voter lists provided by the state or who requested an absentee ballot but signed an affidavit saying they did not return it.

As of tonight, with one precinct left, Hillary Clinton is leading Barack Obama by 1,000 votes.

With 183 of 184 of precincts reporting, Hillary Rodham Clinton held a lead of 1,092 votes — 67,921 votes compared to 66,829 for Barack Obama, according to preliminary results posted on the state Democratic Party's Web site.

Officials from both campaigns will be present for the count, but the news media is excluded.

At stake for Hillary and Obama: dividing up New Mexico's 26 committed delegates. There are also 12 superdelegates who can vote how they want once they get to the convention in Denver.

With the race this close, it looks like a split of 26 delegates, whoever wins. I guess the rest is about bragging rights.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 07, 2008 (boomark / email).