NM Daily Lobo 11 03 16

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Thursday, November 3, 2016 | Vo l u m e 1 2 1 | I s s u e 2 3

Hazardous waste mishandling may prove costly By Matthew Reisen @MReisen88

UNM Safety and Risk Services is still in conversations with the New Mexico Environment Department — and may be fined — over numerous safety violations, mostly concerning the handling, labeling and disposal of hazardous materials. Carla Domenici, director of SRS, said they are still in discussions with NMED over almost 30 violations, stemming from an inspection conducted in March 2016. UNM Safety & Risk Services Department provides “comprehensive occupational safety, health, and environmental management” services to ensure that departments are providing a safe working environment. Allison Majure, NMED communications director, said the Environment Department’s Hazardous Waste Bureau’s oversight assures New Mexicans that hazardous waste is managed safely and that contaminated sites are cleaned up, in a manner that is safe and protective of human health and the environment. “Following our March inspection and subsequent issuance of fines to the University of

see

Violations page 2

April Torres / Daily Lobo / @i_apreel

Work is being done on a lab at the Centennial Engineering building on Oct. 25, 2016. UNM is facing charges for the mishandling of materials in labs.

UNM voting site makes casting ballots easier By Nichole Harwood @Nolidoli1 Early voting is underway in Bernalillo County, and there will be an early voting site open in the Student Union Building until Friday, in order to make it easier for students and staff to cast a ballot. Joey Keefe, a public information officer in the Bernalillo County Clerk’s Office, said the office currently has 19 early voting convenience centers and 69 voting convenience centers in Bernalillo County. “Our goal is to always have polling locations in parts of the county that will be able to serve as many voters as possible,” Keefe said. Within UNM there is technically just one location, he said, but there should be 20 to 30 voting booths operating. The site is located on the 3rd floor of the SUB in rooms Lobo A and B, he said. Keefe said the UNM location was logical because of the way that it is set up and the fact that there are potentially thousands of eligible voters on campus at any given time. So far in 2016, 4,316 voters have cast a ballot at the UNM site, he said.

April Torres / Daily Lobo / @i_apreel

A voter and poll worker stand in front of the UNM early voting station on the third floor of the SUB. Early voting will conclude on Friday at 8 p.m.

During the equivalent amount of time in 2012, 4,269 voters cast a ballot at the UNM site. Because of these numbers, he said overall, the turnout at the UNM site has been fairly consistent from one presidential election to the next. “It is difficult to say how many of these are actual students, though we have heard positive feedback from students who are able to cast a ballot without need-

On the Daily Lobo website SANCHEZ: Campus Crime Briefs for Oct. 23-29 GONZALEZ: Men’s Soccer prepares for their final game of the season on Friday YU: Volleyball goes back on the road to face Wyoming and Colorado State

ing to leave campus,” Keefe said. To inform students of the early voting station, the Bernalillo County Clerk’s Office has had a voter outreach team, which has been very active at UNM leading up to this year’s election, he said. Keefe said the team has held at least 15 events at UNM since the end of this year’s primary election, which includes, among others, third party voter registration agent trainings and

voter registration drives. The County Clerk’s Office engages in an ongoing advertising campaign throughout each election year to educate voters about their options, he said. This advertising includes more digital and social media outreach leading up to this election, as the method tends to be successful with college-aged voters, Keefe said. As far as how the early voter stations work, Keefe said that under the voting convenience center model, an eligible Bernalillo County voter may cast a ballot at any location within the county. This means that a voter is able to vote wherever is most convenient, based on where they may be at any given point during the day and regardless of the precinct in which they are registered, he said. Keefe said it is important for the UNM student population to remember that this year’s ballot is long and has a lot of content on it. It is a 19-inch, two-sided ballot, and Keefe said that studying your sample ballot before you head to an early voting location will help you make more informed decisions and will allow you to complete the process in a shorter amount of time.

Students may access their sample ballot by visiting www.bernco. gov/MyVoterInformation and typing in their name as it appears on their voter registration form, as well as their full date of birth, he said. Keefe said that all early voting convenience centers in the county, including the UNM site, will close at 8 p.m. on Friday. Keefe noted that the UNM site will also be a voting convenience center on Election Day, for those who aren’t able to cast a ballot before early voting ends. On Election Day, the UNM site will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., he said. Gabe Gallegos, spokesperson for ASUNM said that although ASUNM is not involved in the early voting booths, they encourage everyone to get out there out and vote. Gallegos said ASUNM believes having a polling location here at UNM is convenient and accessible for the students here. “We hope having a location here gets millennials and University students out to vote,” he said. Nichole Harwood is a news reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Nolidoli1.

GRAY: Nearly 11 million millennials will now be eligible to vote this election HARWOOD: Indie video games are creating a new dynamic between creator and fan LYNCH: A new report recommends that UNM change its official seal


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