On August 19, an indictment was made public, charging former New Mexico Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron with fraud, money laundering, tax fraud, attempts to evade or defeat tax, making/permitting false public vouchers, soliciting/receiving an illegal kickback, offering/paying an illegal kickback, and tampering with evidence. The charges seem to relate to federal funds sent to the Secretary of State’s office during 2004 for voter education. See this story, which has a link to the 20-page indictment.

Vigil-Giron served three four-year terms as Secretary of State. She was elected in 1986, 1998, and 2002. She is a Democrat. She made some rulings that were hostile to minor parties. During her second term, in 1999, the Libertarian Party was conducting a registration drive. Her office disallowed all new Libertarian registrants in any particular county, if even one person in that county complained that he or she had been tricked into registering into the party. However, a state court judge disallowed that ruling and restored the registrations.

During her third term, when the Green Party was entitled to a primary in 2004 (because it had polled over 5% for Governor in 2002), she ruled all Green candidates who were running for public office off the Green Party primary ballot, so that the Green Party was left with no nominees except for president and vice-president in 2004. Also, starting with the 2006 election, she removed the straight-ticket device from the general election ballot for all parties except the Democratic and Republican Parties, even though nothing in the law authorizes such discriminatory treatment. Also, while she was Secretary of State, the Secretary of State’s webpage was set up to show voter registration data by political party, but omitted any mention of the qualified minor parties, thus giving the impression that they didn’t exist.

On August 19, Markham Robinson and Wiley Drake asked a U.S. District Court in Orange County, California, to re-enter the lawsuit Barnett v Obama, SACV09-82. This is one of the lawsuits over the constitutional qualifications to be President. Drake was the vice-presidential candidate listed on the November 2008 ballot in California for the American Independent Party, and Markham is the state chair of the faction of the AIP that supported Alan Keyes for president.

The two are now represented by attorney Gary Kreep. Earlier the attorney for the other plaintiffs, Orly Taitz, had submitted paperwork that indicated Drake and Markham were dropping out of the case. Actually, Drake and Markham want to remain in the case with another attorney. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for this news.

The Rhode Island House of Representatives is likely to reconvene September 2, to consider bills that the State Senate has already passed. Among those bills are the ballot access bills, SB 203 and HB 5426. They lower the number of signatures for a new party from 5% of the last vote cast, to 10,000 signatures. They also conform Rhode Island law to the federal court ballot access victory earlier this year, by eliminating the law that says such petitions can’t circulate until January 1 of an even year.