And the other states that are “too close to call”?
We’re the land of Manana.
Muppetland-the land of Mananana-na Mana-na-na-na Ma-na-na-na -na-na-na na na na na na "
WAG - almost a third of the state’s population lives in Bernalillo County (the Albuquerque area), so it’s just probably all slow counting since most of the voting activity will be centered around there.
Optimist’s answer:
We have a lot of snowbirds and military personnel, hence lots of absentee and provisional ballots. These may take some time to collect and to count.
Pessimist’s answer:
Many of our county clerks are suspected of cemetery polling. Expect the clerk’s party to have a last-minute surge in the counting.
I’m in Dona Ana county. Our county clerk is a temp, who replaced a guy who was impeached for a combination of incompetence and alleged malfeasance. (It’s a long story. Suffice it to say that each political party is utterly convinced that the other is utterly corrupt.)
That must be my friend Barry in Santa Fe. He takes forever to vote!!
Update from Dona Ana County:
There were 8000 absentee ballots. (That’s a pretty big chunk of our population!) Not enough personnel to count them by hand.
They had one machine to count them. It broke.
While a replacement machine was being shipped from Rio Rancho, the ballots were stored overnight in a vault, guarded by sheriff’s deputies and representatives from each political party.
Heh. I love this state. Also, I love the fact that (it seems) that absolutely no one cares about us now. Not even people here.
[hijack] I learned at work today that New Mexico magazine runs a back-page feature entitled “One of our fifty is missing”, in which people send in accounts of talking to people who are under the impression that New Mexico is, in fact, not part of the United States. I don’t understand - do they think that we’re ‘old’ Mexico? But new?[/hijack[
Well, the Land of Enchantment feels compelled to identify itself as New Mexico USA on license plates, so plenty of people are obviously under the impression that they need a passport to go from Maine to Albuquerque.
Here are some sample anecdotes from the magazine feature you mention.
Incidentally, Bush currently leads Kerry by about 8000 votes in the New Mexoco balloting, with 99% of precincts reporting. It looks as if Dubya will be awarded Iowa as well.
Oyeah. The whole time I was at St. John’s, my dad was under the impression that I was in Arizona.