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New Mexico Elections Earn Top Rating

By Peter St. Cyr

For Pete’s Sake

State election administrators have earned kudos for their continuous efforts to improve voting procedures and secure free and fair elections.

Usually at the bottom of most rankings, New Mexico officials topped all states on the prestigious Election Performance Index (EPI), a project of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election Data and Science Lab, described as “a non-partisan, objective measure of U.S. election administration.”

With a score of 88% in the 2022 mid-term election cycle, New Mexico jumped eight places ahead of its 2018 ranking and topped Michigan, Colorado, Vermont and Nebraska. Arkansas, Mississippi and Wyoming bottomed the list.

The most recent EPI is based on 18 indicators, including the percentage of mail ballots that are rejected, whether the state requires risk-limiting tabulation audits, and the turnout rate.

New Mexico’s peak ranking is a clear indication how far the state has moved ahead from the days-long vote-count debacle following the Democrats’ 2008 Super Tuesday election and the indictments of two former New Mexico secretaries of state: Rebecca Vigil Giron, for alleged misuse of federal funds (charges were later dropped), and Dianna Duran, who pled guilty to embezzlement, fraud and campaign violations.

Data from two years ago show the state had an 80.35% voter registration rate and a turnout rate of 46.54%, almost a full percentage point below the national average. Still, voters will cheer that the average reported wait in line to vote is less than four minutes. New Mexico also got high marks for its voter registration and online lookup tools.

The peak ranking should give residents confidence headed into June’s primary and this fall’s general election, which has been described as the most consequential election of the century. Free and fair elections, administered with fairness and confidence, are the bedrock of our democracy, and current Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse, a Democrat, at the helm of state elections since first being elected in 2016, should take a bow for her commitment to these improvements.

“Alongside my incredible staff and the tireless work of our 33 county clerks and their staffs, I’m proud to have helped modernize New Mexico’s elections by finding a critical balance between voter access and election security,” Toulouse said in a news release.

Toulouse also gave state lawmakers credit for enacting new election laws.The EPI compares states’ performances; it’s also a way to chart national trends that have made steady gains over the past decade. New Mexico jumped from a total score of less than 70% in 2010 to close to 90% presently.

While we recognize this gain, we suggest election administrators not rest on their laurels but continue their hard work, especially getting out the vote and boosting turnout.

After all, free and fair elections are the means through which the will of the people is translated into governance.

We can’t imagine an alternative where governance isn’t derived from the people’s consent but from the whims of self-proclaimed autocrats or the selfish interests of a few. Such a society would be bereft of the freedoms and protections we often take for granted.

Elections empower citizens to shape our collective future. Each vote cast is more profound than just choosing a candidate; it’s about asserting our right to govern ourselves. The simple act of voting is more than a civic duty – it’s the heartbeat of a functioning democracy.

Vote integrity hinges on our freedom to participate in the electoral process without fear, intimidation or manipulation.

It’s a human right that should be defended at all costs.

For more information on voting in New Mexico, visit the state’s online portal at NMVote.com.

Contact the writer at Peter505@me.com.

Setting new year’s resolutions is a valuable exercise

By Peter St. Cyr

For Pete’s Sake

It's that time of the year again, when we eagerly await the strike of midnight to turn our calendars to a brand new year. And with this new beginning comes a tradition that has been around for centuries – setting New Year's resolutions.While the concept of making resolutions may seem like a modern-day trend, it actually has its roots in ancient civilizations. The Babylonians, for instance, made promises to their gods at the start of each year in hopes of gaining favor. This practice was also adopted by the Romans, who dedicated the month of January to Janus – the god of new beginnings and transitions.

Fast forward to present times, and setting New Year's resolutions has become a widespread practice across the world. Whether it's to lose weight, save money, or travel more, the start of a new year offers us an opportunity to reflect on our lives and make positive changes.

But why do we continue to partake in this tradition? Is it simply a way to set goals for ourselves or is there something deeper at play?

The truth is, setting New Year's resolutions is a valuable exercise that goes beyond just establishing goals. It allows us to take a step back and evaluate the past year – our successes, failures, and areas for improvement. This self-reflection is an important aspect of personal growth and development.

The act of setting resolutions has always been highly motivating. By vocalizing our intentions for the new year, we hold ourselves accountable and are more likely to take action towards achieving our goals. In fact, studies have shown that people who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than those who don't.

What about the argument that New Year's resolutions are often broken just a few weeks into the new year? While this may be true for some, the mere act of setting resolutions is still valuable. Even if we don't fully achieve our goals, the process of trying and making progress towards them has its own merits.

Additionally, setting New Year's resolutions can foster a sense of community. As we share our resolutions with friends and family, we create a support system that can help us stay on track and offer encouragement along the way. This communal aspect can make the journey towards our resolutions more enjoyable and less daunting.

Setting New Year's resolutions allows us to prioritize and refocus on what truly matters to us. In today's fast-paced society, we often get caught up in our daily routines and forget about our long-term aspirations. By setting resolutions, we are forced to take a step back and identify what is truly important to us. This can lead to a more meaningful and fulfilling life.

After battling stage four throat cancer and having my voice box removed during surgery, I have already made new, valuable connections and changed aspects of my shattered life. So this year, after thinking about personal accountability I’ve decided to manage one easy resolution and one more difficult.

At first I only wanted to have one resolution: To do nothing to ruin my day. It seemed like the best path forward in the new year and would cover all aspects of my personal and professional life, especially how procrastination has ruined big parts of my life over the years. But the more I considered the goal and decided it alone was doable, I realized that I better set a complimentary goal: To let no one else ruin my day.

I imagine that one will be more difficult to manage, so please wish me luck.

Artificial Intelligence wrote this column. Is it ethical?

By Peter St. Cyr

For Pete’s Sake

For years, screenplays have featured computers diligently outsmarting their human programmers. What may have seemed like far-fetched science fiction before has become a potential threat today. Advanced computers have beaten world chess champions and in less than five decades, we have witnessed comic strip character Dick Tracy’s futuristic wrist radio become a reality with billions of people relying on their smart phones and watches.

For good or bad, artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere today. Financial analysts even predict it will soon displace millions of workers. So, curious about my own job, I decided to experiment with a free online word generator at Gamma.app. After learning the simple commands, I submitted a request for a 600-word column focused on the ethics of using AI to write an opinion piece.

This is what it produced in less than a minute:

As technology advances at an unprecedented pace, it is becoming easier for AI to produce news articles and opinion pieces. While there are significant advantages to this, there are also ethical concerns that need to be addressed.

One of the biggest advantages of AI-generated pieces is their speed. They can produce articles in seconds. Additionally, they don't suffer from writer's block, fatigue, or other inherent human issues. The downside of text-producing AI is that it may just produce lukewarm, neutral, or banal texts that nobody wants to read, while removing the positive and negative extremes that help us form opinions. Additionally, it is difficult to ensure that the AI was programmed ethically, that it's not spreading false or biased messages, and that it's transparent and accountable.

The introduction of AI in any aspect of life comes with inevitable consequences, both positive and negative. Predicting the impact of AI-generated articles on journalism and media is not a straightforward task, but it is necessary to consider how this may change the way we perceive news and information.

One possible effect is a reduction in the number of journalists and writers needed, leading to a loss of jobs. However, it may also lead to an increase in profits for media companies, as they may be able to publish more content and reach a larger audience.

Although AI can provide speed and efficiency, it is only one part of the equation to writing and publishing opinion pieces. The human element remains a key part of the process, especially when it comes to editorial oversight and quality control.

Human editors have a responsibility to ensure that the opinions expressed align with the values and ethics of their organizations. Editors must also make sure that the articles are unbiased, factual, and informative. They can use AI as a tool to assist them in their work, but the final product should still have human input and oversight.

Some possible solutions to ethical questions raised by AI-generated articles include increased transparency, accountability, regulation, and ethical guidelines for AI-based journalism.

AI should be utilized to make the writing process faster and more efficient, not to replace human writers. We still need humans to express the vulnerabilities and emotions that make articles compelling to read.

For me, this experiment clearly demonstrates that AI may indeed become an integral part of journalism in the future.

Even the program admitted that despite its benefits, “AI needs a human touch to achieve empathetic, engaging, and thought-provoking content. It is human writers who can make pithy comments, include humor, sarcasm, or any of a hundred emotive contexts that are part of any effective article.”

To contact the author email Peter505@outlook.com.

Limiting cannabis licenses is a bad idea

By Peter St. Cyr

For Pete’s Sake

New Mexico’s budding 14-month-old, adult-use cannabis industry has generated more than $360 million dollars in economic activity and employed thousands of hard-working residents in communities across the state.

On almost every major street in cities across the state cannabis companies, like coffee shops and the once flourishing mom-and-pop video stores from long ago, pop up with owners’ dreams of making a fortune with their golden ticket to serve the cannabis-smoking public.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and regulators who administer the Cannabis Control Division (CCD) say the industry has shown great promise and look forward to even more growth in the years ahead. But some industry players claim the future for many of the 633 dispensaries, who comply with all of CDD’s rules and pay millions in gross receipt and monthly excise taxes, is bleak.

In a letter signed by nearly 100 firms and mailed to the governor and state Regulation and Licensing Superintendent Linda Trujillo the last week of June, the companies propose a temporary halt to the issuance of any new operating licenses. The market, they believe, is oversaturated and faces extreme instability from a “flourishing illicit market.” Without a pause in licensing, the firms warn of employee layoffs and “homegrown” businesses being forced to close their doors.

“Our industry is competing with a long-established illicit market, which is flourishing due to a lack of resources for compliance, enforcement, and established consequences to deter individuals and organizations from participating in illegal cannabis activities,” a portion of the letter reads.

Allowing regulators the authority to limit the number of licenses issued without legislative oversight is a bad idea.

In fact, the original House bill to legalize and regulate adult cannabis (introduced in the 2021 session) included language that would have empowered CDD with licensing cap authority, but lawmakers properly opted in favor of a free market where supply and demand will control both wholesale and retail product prices.

The governor and Superintendent Trujillo have promised to work closely with the industry and identify potential adjustments to the market white it’s still in its infancy, but the Legislature is the proper venue to ensure the industry is properly regulated and safety valves are in place.

Ben Lewinger, executive director of the New Mexico Cannabis Chamber of Commerce, who did not sign the letter, agrees it’s an issue for lawmakers to decide.

If a pause in licensing is granted, potential applicants should be given at least a six-month notice to complete their applications, especially for firms that may have signed long-term leases on valuable retail space in prime locations.

Because of federal laws, cannabis companies are unable to file bankruptcy and have no ability to reorganize, so at minimum licenses should be awarded to firms that acquire an existing cannabis company on the verge of failing and laying off its workforce.

Rather than lock down licenses, regulators would be well suited to determine market demand in New Mexico and potentially cap plant production with the goal to have many mom-and-pop shops growing a limited number of plants, rather than a small group of well capitalized firms harvesting a virtually unlimited supply of plants.

Ultimately, the Legislature and the executive branches should look to the judicial branch for guidance on the issue. Recent court orders have determined the government has a ministerial duty to issue these licenses to businesses that meet the application criteria and have not been convicted of certain drug-related felonies.

Contact Peter St. Cyr at about.me/peterstcyr

Celebrating the best father in the world

By Peter St. Cyr

For Pete’s Sake

This Sunday, like millions of Americans, I will celebrate Father’s Day. I will cherish the memory of my adoptive father’s life and the impact his love had on my well being.

His active engagement in my life positively influenced my social development, helped me achieve academically and steered my moral growth from childhood into adulthood.

I was blessed when my adoptive parents rescued me from a Catholic orphanage for special needs children six months after I was born with a hole in my heart. It was a dangerous physical ailment that had scared away other couples looking to grow their families through adoption.

My father, a military man stationed in Aurora, Colo., wasn’t deterred by doctors’ suggestions that I would require open heart surgery, a costly procedure to repair the inner walls separating the two sides of my heart.

My dad knew when he adopted me the healthcare benefits he earned as a master sergeant in the Air Force would cover the steep surgical costs. A devout Christian, he prayed that his benefits would help save my young life.

After I gained the weight and strength needed for the surgery, cardiologists determined the organic murmur, which affects only one percent of the population, had miraculously healed itself. A lucky break. Even as the hole in my heart closed, my father’s always remained open to me and two siblings.

The Fatherhood Project, a nonprofit fatherhood program seeking to improve the health and well-being of children and families by empowering fathers to be knowledgeable, active and emotionally engaged with their children, has researched the specific impacts of father engagement during different childhood development stages.

The group’s researchers determined that having an authoritative father leads to better emotional, academic, social and behavioral outcomes. In fact, children who feel close to their fathers, like I did, are twice as likely to enter college or find stable employment after high school and are 75% less likely to have a teen birth, 80% less likely to spend time in jail, and half as likely to experience symptoms associated with depression. On the other hand, children whose fathers are absent may suffer lifelong psychological harm.

I know my father’s involvement in my childhood made me a happy, well-adjusted child focused on earning A’s and preparing for college more than dropping out or having to repeat a grade.

My father told me he vowed to be involved in his children’s lives after watching his own father, a top lawyer, drown the sorrows of losing his young wife to cancer in booze. It was embarrassing, my dad recalled, to get frequent calls to come pull his drunk pop out of a bar.

I’m lucky my father put the negative relationship he had with his own father aside and focused on making me a well-rounded, happy person with a sharp mental dexterity.

I still smile when I look through the family photo album and see pictures of my older brother wrestling my father on the living room floor while I half cried out loud, “My turn, my turn!”

A black-and-white photo that captures my dad lifting me into the sky while I lay prone on his hands and feet will always make me smile from cheek to cheek.

This Sunday, when I celebrate the memory of my father, I’m grateful for his involvement in my life. I’m grateful he spent countless mornings reading newspaper columns aloud and asking me to think critically about community issues.

I’m thankful my father inspired me to become a journalist where I’ve spent most of my life writing stories in the public interest.

It’s what I plan to continue to do, in his honor, with this monthly column, For Pete’s Sake.

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