Specifically, the law provides that county clerks are to compare the total votes tallied in the general election for the office of president or governor from a random selection of 2% of the voting systems used during the election throughout the state to a hand count of the ballots cast on that system. A voting system is defined as a vote-tabulating machine.

The purpose of the law is to verify the accuracy and efficacy of the voting systems or vote tabulating machines in tabulating votes. Thus, the audit is meant as a performance audit of the voting machines. The New Mexico law is similar to laws that have been passed or are being considered in legislative committees across the country that require manual counts of paper ballots and voter-verifiable paper records in randomly selected units (e.g. precincts or voting systems) and comparing them to the corresponding electronic or manual tallies, for the purpose of verifying the election result with a high level of confidence. The broader purpose of these measures is to strengthen voter confidence in the administration process and its outcomes.
View Entire Report Here
Read the Final 2006 Post Election Audit Report Here