SANTA FE, NM (AP) — Votes in a New Mexico community are at risk of not counting after a Republican-led commission refused to approve primary election results over distrust of Dominion voting machines.
Democratic Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver on Tuesday asked the state Supreme Court to order the three-member Otero County commission to certify the results of the June 7 primaries to ensure voters do not lose their right to vote and that political candidates have access to the general election in November.
On Monday, in its role as the county’s recruiting council, the committee voted unanimously against certifying the primary election results without raising specific concerns about discrepancies, over the county secretary’s objection.
“I am very concerned about these voting machines,” Otero County Commissioner Vickie Marquardt said Monday. “When I declare things that I don’t know to be right, I feel like I’m being unfair because in my heart I don’t know if it’s right.”
Since the 2020 election, Dominion’s systems have been unfairly attacked by people embracing the false belief that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. The company has filed defamation lawsuits in response to erroneous and outrageous claims from high-profile Trump allies.
New Mexico’s Dominion machines have been repeatedly disparaged by David and Erin Clements of Las Cruces in their review of the 2020 Otero County election and voter registration lists at the commission’s request. The Clements are traveling advocates for “forensic” assessments of the 2020 elections, offering their services as election experts and auditors to local governments. Election officials, including County Clerk Robyn Holmes, say the Clements are neither certified auditors nor experts in election protocols.
The pair has highlighted issues this year during sporadic, hour-long presentations to the committee. Local election officials dispute many of the findings as inaccurate or unfounded.
Members of the Otero County committee include Cowboys for Trump co-founder Couy Griffin, who attributes unsubstantiated claims that Trump won the 2020 election. Griffin was convicted of illegally trespassing on the trespassing of the United States Capitol — but not the building — amid the riots on Jan. 6, 2021, and will be sentenced later this month. He acknowledged that the deadlock over these primaries could delay the outcome of local elections.
The county’s recruiting committees have until June 17 to certify election results, prior to state certification and preparation for general election votes.
Under state law, provincial investigative councils can call on a polling station to address specific discrepancies, but the Otero Commission found no discrepancies on Monday.
“The post-election hiring process is an important part of how we maintain our high levels of electoral integrity in New Mexico, and the Otero County Commission is showing off that process by appeasing baseless conspiracy theories and potentially nullifying the votes of any voter in Otero County who has taken part. in the primaries,” Toulouse Oliver said in a statement. She accused the commission of deliberate violations of the state election code.
New Mexico uses paper ballots that can be double-checked later in all elections, and also relies on tabulation machines to count votes quickly while minimizing human error. Election results are also checked by random sampling to verify the accuracy of the vote count.
The Otero County Commission voted last week to manually recount primary ballots statewide, remove state-mandated ballot boxes that facilitate absentee voting, and prohibit the use of Dominion ballot-tab machines in the general election. to end.
On Monday, Holmes said those instructions from the county commissions violate state and federal electoral law, and that she would only hand-tell the election under a court order.
“The electoral law does not allow me to count these ballots or even form a board to do so. I just can’t,” said Holmes, a Republican. “And I’m going to follow the law.”
Holmes noted that Dominion’s state-owned voting tab machines are publicly tested by Otero County officials, and the machines are also independently pre-certified. Griffin said he and fellow commissioners do not consider the process reliable.
“That’s a resource that we have no control or influence over,” he said.
Mario Jimenez of the progressive watchdog group Common Cause New Mexico said the public can see pre-election testing of voting machines in every province, and certification messages will be posted on every machine where voters can see them.
“They have no basis — other than ‘we just don’t trust the machine’ — for not certifying the election,” Jimenez said of the Otero County commissioners.
Although Trump won nearly 62% of the vote in Otero County in 2020, county commissioners have said they are not satisfied with the results of the state’s vote-checking, nor with their Republican district secretary’s assurances that this year’s election will be correct. will be.
The county commissioners were not immediately available for comment on Tuesday.
Marquardt, the commissioner, laughed Monday at the suggestion that a court could intervene in the election dispute.
“So what? Are they going to send us to the pokey?’ she said.
