Roswell Daily Record
Vol. 123, No. 263 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
November 1, 2014
Duran, Oliver differ on voter ID, fraud and ballot questions STAFF AND WIRE REPORT
Republican Secretary of State Dianna Duran is fighting to keep her job in a close race that has her pitted against Democratic Ber nalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver. A major focus in the race has been voter ID. Duran is seeking to become the first Republi-
can re-elected to the seat in decades and hopes her push for new voter ID measures puts her over the top.
Citing fraud concerns, Duran said new laws are needed to preserve the integrity of the election process. “It’s a problem here in New Mexico, and my opponent fights voter ID wherev-
Power to the pumpkins
SATURDAY
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er she goes,” Duran said. “I don’t understand it.” Oliver, Bernalillo County’s clerk for nearly eight years, said voter fraud is rare. Oliver said requiring voters to have identification would just prevent certain residents from casting ballots. “It’s a solution in search of a problem,” Oliver said.
“Voter ID only addresses a very rare form of fraud.” Duran, 59, of Tularosa, is a former Otero County clerk and state senator. She said she is much more experienced than Oliver, 38, of Albuquerque. Duran said she is in position to adopt any election changes being considered by lawmakers. “She can’t even come
Timothy P. Howsare Photo
The Roswell Daily Record staff judged a pumpkin carving contest by local young people, including one 4-year-old Dracula. Taking first place for youth 10 and under is Sammy Ogas with his mother Maria. Sammy submitted a pumpkin decorated with Hershey’s Kisses. Sammy’s older brother, Joseph, 18, took first place for kids older than 10. His entry was a pumpkin eating another pumpkin. With Sammy is his girlfriend, Lexi Bower. Each winner received a check for $25 from the Roswell Daily Record.
Fate of Arnett voter registration fraud allegations still unknown
Duran
Oliver
close to my experience,” Duran said. Oliver said she has been the clerk in the state’s largest county while Duran
was once a clerk “of a very small county in New Mexico back in the ’80s.”
BY JEFF TUCKER RECORD STAFF WRITER
$48,032 in her bid for a fifth two-year term in the New Mexico House of Representatives. Her Democrat challenger, Dick Mastin of Alto, had raised a total of $17,298, according to his report. Espinoza had $21,004 cash on hand as of Tuesday. Mastin had $2,863 remaining in campaign funds, and $4,000 of unpaid campaign debt. The race is critical to Republicans, who need to pick up just three seats to take a majority in the 70member House for the first time since 1954. Currently, there are 37 Democrats and 33 Republicans serving in the House, although all 70 seats are
Espinoza spreads campaign wealth, challenger Mastin reimburses himself When a local candidate donates thousands of dollars of campaign funds to a statewide candidate in the closing days of a race, that’s usually a sign of Election Day confidence. When a local candidate also donates campaign funds to a local junior livestock organization, a high school dance team, a veterans group, and another candidate, that’s a sign of electoral certainty. Republican state Rep. Nora Espinoza of Roswell has done all those things in recent weeks, according to campaign finance reports published this week by the Secretary of State office. Espinoza, as of Tuesday, had raised a total of
Students say no to drugs
See SOS, Page A3
See CAMPAIGN, Page A3
No answer from Secretary of State’s office despite 5 months of phone calls, emails
BY TIMOTHY P. HOWSARE RECORD EDITOR
It has been more than five months since the Daily Record first reported on three incidents of apparent voter registration fraud by family members of Bobby Ar nett, who was unsuccessful in his attempt to win the Republican candidacy for District 1 magistrate judge in the June 2 primary. Though Arnett is out of the running for a judgeship, it is still unknown whether the allegations of fraud will be investigated
and/or if criminal charges will be brought against Eddie, Amy and Manon Arnett.
Arnett’s opponent, sitting District 1 Magistrate Judge K.C. Rogers, will run unopposed in the General Election on Tuesday.
By querying records from both the Chaves County Clerk’s of fice and the Chaves County Assessor’s Of fice, the newspaper lear ned that Eddie and Amy Arnett own a house in District 2 but used the address of their business, Amy’s Fireworks, in March to register to vote. Manon
DST ends Sunday
Steve Stone Graphic
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TODAY’S FORECAST
Arnett also used the business address to vote. She lives on Catalina Drive on the northside of Roswell, according to a search on the assessor's office website. District 1 includes the southside of Roswell and the southern portions of Chaves County. Amy’s Fireworks is located at 227 E. Darby Road in Dexter, which is in District 1. Voter registration fraud is not a small infraction under New Mexico state statutes.
Max Scally Photo
Sunset Elementary School and Mountain View Middle School students marched Thursday and pledged to say no to drugs. Each year, during national Red Ribbon Week, the Chaves County DWI Prevention Program, several law agencies and other organizations come together with school districts county-wide to celebrate being drug free and fight substance abuse.
New Mexico offers support after rocket explosion See ALLEGATIONS, Page A2
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — It was a scene that had played out dozens of times: Virgin Galactic’s carrier plane, with its rocket-powered spaceship nestled underneath, taxied onto a runway in the Califor nia desert before dawn and prepared to take off.
and families and to our friends and colleagues at Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic,” the New Mexico Spaceport Authority said in a statement. “We will continue to work with and lend our support to Virgin Galactic through this tragedy and in the coming months as we move forward.”
If all went well, the company planned to move
operations early next year to Spaceport America in southern New Mexico for a final round of test flights and then begin commercial flights from the quarter-billion-dollar, taxpayer financed spaceport. Hopes of that happening anytime soon were dashed Friday when the spaceship exploded, killing one pilot and seriously injuring another. The news spread and saddened officials in New Mexico. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the crew
• FRED FREEMAN HOUSE • SISTER JEAN GIRZAITIS • NANCY JO CORN
• JEAN HARDWICK • ANGELITA CHAVEZ • BETTY FAY (SHELTON) NOBLE
CLASSIFIEDS ..........B6 COMICS .................B5 ENTERTAINMENT .....A8 FINANCIAL ..............B3
H o w e v e r, t h e f l i g h t planned for Friday marked a key step, as the company moved to once again power up the rocket after months of development and tweaking.
TODAY’S OBITUARIES PAGE B4
Christine Anderson, the authority’s executive director, didn’t want to comment on the explosion over the Mojave Desert or what effect the developments might have on Spaceport America and
the future of commercial space travel.
Virgin Galactic is in line to be the main tenant at the state-of-the-art spaceport that was built specifically t o lau nc h p a yin g customers into space, a dream of Virgin Galactic founder and British billionaire Richard Branson. His company has repeatedly pushed back the timetable for when the flights — costing $250,000 per person were to begin, pointing to delays in development and testing of the rocket ship.
INDEX GENERAL ...............A2
HOROSCOPES .........A8 LOTTERIES .............A2
OPINION .................A4
SPORTS .................B1
WEATHER ..............A8