Home is where the heart-not the vote-is

RESERVE, N.M. (KRQE) - Something is amiss with elections in the tiny mountain village of Reserve although the clues followed by KRQE News 13 investigative reporter Larry Barker showed similar deceits and deceptions in communities all over New Mexico.

Bob Caylor, a retired engineer, became one of the victims in March when he ran for a seat on the Reserve Village Council.

"This is not right," Caylor said. "It was just not a fair election. I lost by one vote."

Caylor garnered 90 votes. But opponent Keith Riddle claimed victory with 91 and said he won the election fair and square.

Fair and square? A closer look revealed troubling irregularities in Reserve's election. Yet what happened there happens all over New Mexico casting a cloud over every election from Reserve to Raton to Ruidoso Downs.

Voting is a fundamental human right that's being widely abused. The law is simple and clear: Where you live determines where you vote.

The News 13 investigation, however, found people voting in places where they don't live.

"It could be a crime," said Bill Fulginitti, executive director of the New Mexico Municipal League, an association of all the state's village, town and city governments. "It's a really big issue. If you are a candidate, you lose by one vote or three or four votes, and you know there are people living elsewhere, you feel that you've been deprived of that office by somebody who doesn't live there."

Ed Romero won a seat on the Reserve council in the March election but still is bothered by where some of the voters actually lived.

"The fact that many people that voted shouldn't have voted," Romero said. "You know, if they don't reside within the municipality therefore I don't think they should have been allowed to vote."

Those would be voters like Reserve Village Treasurer Lori Martinez and her husband Henry. He is registered to vote on North Main Street while she lists her residence as simply Lot 1, Block 2 in the village.

In fact Lori and Henry Martinez don't live in Reserve. Their home is a good five miles outside the village limits, yet they voted in the Reserve election anyway.

So did Juan Perez. His voter registration lists his address as Main Street, but he lives way outside Reserve in rural Catron County.

Paula Peralta voted using an address as simply Main Street. Her actual residence? The unincorporated community of Middle Frisco.

It was the same story with Odelia Aragón. She voted in the election claiming to live in town. In fact, her home is down the road and across the river, well outside the village.

The list goes on and on and on.

Catron County Clerk Sharon Armijo told News 13 who is responsible for making sure voters live where they say they live.

"It's the voter's responsibility to register where they are actually residing, living," said Armijo.

And if somebody lies?

"I can't do anything," Armijo continued. "That has to be challenged in court."

Otherwise voters who don't live in Reserve can voter in village elections "if their conscience lets them," she said.

The News 13 investigation found it's not just Reserve. Ineligible voters are casting ballots all over New Mexico.

Even in New Mexico's biggest county voter registrars can only take a voter's statements on faith.

"A county clerk cannot peer into the mind of the voter and know what that intent is." Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver said. "When a voter files a voter registration card in my office I have to assume that the voter is filling out a form under penalty of perjury and is aware that the information that they are putting down is true and accurate."

Under state law, if you move, you need to change your voter registration so you vote where you live. If you happen to cast your ballot in your old precinct, that could be a crime.

But don't expect anyone to be hauled off to jail for lying about where they live. It won't happen because not too many years after statehood--1927, to be exact--the state Legislature enacted a loophole.

It's called the "intent to return clause." Basically, it defines someone's residence as the place you live, but if you move and intend to return to your old address someday, then you can still vote there.

So what if a clerk recognizes a voter as not living there? Couldn't the voter be told, "You can't vote here?"

"No, because of the intent statute," Fulginitti said.

So if you ask Lori Martinez why she voted in the Reserve election when she doesn't live there, all she has to say is, "I'll be back." Even if she never returns, it's all quite legal.

So where does that leave Bob Caylor after losing the Reserve election by one vote? He's going to let a judge decide by challenging the election in court.

"When people from outside are coming in to vote, that's not a fair election," he told News 13.

Close elections are a New Mexico tradition. Just ask the folks in Edgewood, Tucumcari and Ruidoso Downs. Recent elections there ended in ties leaving the winning candidates to be decided by games of chance. The winning