Gail Alexan­der

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress PRO Kirk Meighoo was still await­ing word yes­ter­day from the par­ty’s le­gal team on its next step, af­ter it sought ur­gent an­swers from the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) on is­sues in the re­cent check of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions’ Ari­ma North­east bal­lots - in­clud­ing a bal­lot with an al­leged hole in it.

The UNC took is­sue with the Ari­ma North­east re­sults af­ter the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment was de­clared the win­ner of the area last week. This, af­ter var­i­ous de­vel­op­ment since the Au­gust 14 LGE.

In the elec­tion, PNM can­di­date Kim Gar­cia and UNC can­di­date Jairz­in­ho Rigs­by ini­tial­ly tied with 623 votes each, while PEP’s Curt Clement got 81.

UNC then sought a re­count in which Rigs­by re­ceived one more vote and was de­clared win­ner. How­ev­er, the PNM then ques­tioned cer­tain bal­lots and sought an EBC check of those bal­lots. When that was done last Thurs­day, Gar­cia re­ceived two more votes and was de­clared win­ner. Gar­cia was then sworn in as coun­cil­lor last Fri­day in the cor­po­ra­tion, where the PNM con­trols all sev­en ar­eas.

At a Ch­agua­nas meet­ing with UNC al­der­men on Mon­day, how­ev­er, at­ten­dees were told a let­ter would be sent to the EBC on Ari­ma North­east dis­trict.

Yes­ter­day, UNC gen­er­al sec­re­tary Pe­ter Kan­hai wrote to EBC Chief Elec­tions Of­fi­cer, Fern Nar­cis-Scope, call­ing on her to an­swer “se­ri­ous ques­tions about sig­nif­i­cant ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties” in the re­count by 4 pm yes­ter­day, as the par­ty await­ed le­gal ad­vice from its le­gal team to file an elec­tion pe­ti­tion.

Kan­hai’s let­ter de­tailed UNC’s con­cerns on cer­tain bal­lots, in­clud­ing one from Polling Di­vi­sion 2023, in which Kan­hai said a hole was in­ad­ver­tent­ly made in the bal­lot in the re­count “when the Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer had cut the en­ve­lope con­tain­ing same.”

Kan­hai claimed the bal­lot with the hole had been count­ed at the re­count as a vote for the PNM and bore one “X” mark and that bal­lot was nev­er ques­tioned or re­ject­ed.

Sources said the par­ty had un­til Fri­day to file a pe­ti­tion. If a pe­ti­tion is filed, it will be UNC’s sec­ond elec­tion pe­ti­tion con­cern­ing the elec­tion. The UNC has al­ready filed a pe­ti­tion con­cern­ing a re­ject­ed bal­lot over the Lengua/In­di­an Walk re­sults.

But by yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Meighoo couldn’t con­firm if the UNC had ob­tained any re­ply from the EBC by its 4 pm dead­line as it had de­mand­ed; or if one was re­ceived and UNC was ex­am­in­ing it. He on­ly said he was “await­ing word from the le­gal team.”

Ari­ma PNM of­fi­cials mean­while said they weren’t wor­ried, as there was prece­dent that once a per­son was sworn in, it couldn’t be chal­lenged.

“Whether the UNC can find a loop­hole and take it to the Privy Coun­cil is for them to de­ter­mine,” they added.