Gore retains lead in New Mexico after county recount

PORTALES, N.M. (AP) _ George W. Bush picked up some New Mexico votes but not enough to overturn Al Gore's lead in the state after Roosevelt County hand-counted some presidential votes in response to

Thursday, November 30th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

PORTALES, N.M. (AP) _ George W. Bush picked up some New Mexico votes but not enough to overturn Al Gore's lead in the state after Roosevelt County hand-counted some presidential votes in response to Republican questions.

The state Canvassing Board on Thursday waited for the county to certify its election recount results before officially declaring a winner in the presidential race in New Mexico.

State District Judge David Bonem oversaw a recount of straight ticket ballots in the southeastern New Mexico county at the request of the state board. The recount was prompted by Republican concerns about numerous county voters not casting ballots for president in the Nov. 7 general election.

Roosevelt County's hand-recount Wednesday night added 324 votes to Bush's total in the county and 209 votes to Gore's, cutting Gore's lead statewide to 368 votes, according to unofficial totals.

A statewide canvass of returns Tuesday showed Gore ahead by 483 votes: 286,578 to 286,095. The state Canvassing Board agreed to certify Gore as the winner in New Mexico but not to make the results official until Thursday.

Mickey Barnett, the GOP national committeeman for New Mexico, urged the hand recount. He wrote Bonem that the ballots ``are not difficult to tabulate by hand, and in the case of simply reviewing the results of a single race, can generally be counted by hand more quickly than by machine.''

Republicans have rejected a similar argument by Democrats that so-called undervotes be examined in Florida, where state officials declared Bush the winner.

State Democratic Party Chairwoman Diane Denish criticized Republicans for using opposite arguments in New Mexico and Florida.

``They do it one way in New Mexico and they do it another way in Florida. They can't have it both ways,'' she said.

Bonem oversaw the recount of 569 ballots that had been misread because of a programming error in the county's voting machines. County Clerk Joyce Lee Fraze said Thursday the misprogrammed machines noted that people voted a straight-party ticket, but did not assign those votes to individual candidates.

Denise Lamb, head of the state's Elections Bureau, said the programming problem appeared to be isolated.