GOP Candidate Files Complaint in N.M.'s 1st

Rep. Heather Wilson (R) today sent a letter to the House Administration Committee Chairman Vern Ehlers (R-Mich.) complaining that some precincts in New Mexico's 1st District do not have enough ballots.

In a precinct in Bernalillo County, Wilson alleges that at 8:45 local time this morning voters were already being turned away due to a dearth of ballots at their polling place. "Additional ballots were available at the warehouse and were withheld from voting sites," she writes. "Voters turned away were not offered provisional ballots as required by federal law."

The letter requests that observers be sent by the House Administration Committee to the district in order to correct any irregularities.

The 1st District race is expected to be one of the closest races in the country and -- literally -- ever vote counts. Wilson is surely setting the stage for a potential appeal of the vote results should she end up on the wrong end of her race against state Attorney General Patricia Madrid (D).

This is far from the only reporting of election day irregularities so far today. In Prince George's County (Md.), Democrats are accusing Republicans of distributing a flier that makes it seems as though Jack Johnson, the county executive, has endorsed Lt. Gov. Michael Steele (R) for the Senate. And in Colorado's 5th District, Democrats are crying foul about a strange skunk smell in the campaign office of Jay Fawcett this morning.

Use the Election Day comments hub to alert The Fix to any other irregularities like these.

By Chris Cillizza |  November 7, 2006; 4:25 PM ET  | Category:  House
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