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GOP committee refuses to certify New Mexico primaries

Community votes in New Mexico are at risk of not being counted after a Republican-led committee refused to approve the primaries due to mistrust of Dominion’s counting machines.

Democratic Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver on Tuesday asked the state Supreme Court to order the three-member Otero County committee to confirm the June 7 primaries to ensure voters are not disenfranchised. and political candidates have access to the voting of the general election in November.

On Monday, the commission, which serves as a county moderation board, voted unanimously against certifying the preliminary results without raising specific concerns about the discrepancy, in the face of objections from county secretary.

“I have a great interest in these voting machines,” Otero County Commissioner Vickie Marquardt said Monday. “When I endorse things that I don’t know to be true, I feel like I’m being dishonest because deep down I don’t know if it’s true or not.”

Dominion’s systems have been gratuitously hacked since the 2020 election by those who falsely believed that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. The company filed a defamation lawsuit in response to inaccurate and outrageous statements by senior Trump allies.

New Mexico’s Dominion machines were repeatedly disparaged by David and Erin Clements of Las Cruces during their review of the 2020 election in Otero County and the voter registration rolls required by the commission. Clements are traveling advocates for “forensic” reviews of the 2020 election and provide their services as election experts and auditors for local governments. Elections officials including County Clerk Robyn Holmes said that Clements is not a certified auditor or expert on election processes.

The pair highlighted the issues in hour-long presentations before this year’s committee. Local election officials disputed many of the findings as misleading or unfounded.

Members of the Otero County committee include Couy Griffin, a co-founder of Cowboys for Trump, who supported unsubstantiated claims that Trump won the 2020 election. Griffin was found guilty of trespassing. illegally entered the restricted grounds of the US Congress – although not the building – amid riots on January 6, 2021, and is expected to be sentenced later this month. He acknowledged that the deadlock on this primaries could delay the results of local election races.

County censorship boards have until June 17 to certify election results, before state certification and preparation of general election ballots.

Under state law, the county canvass board can call on the constituency board to resolve specific differences, but no differences were identified Monday by the Otero committee.

“The post-election vetting process is a critical component of how we maintain our high levels of electoral integrity in New Mexico, and the Otero County Commission is flaunting that process by debunking theories about how we are doing. baseless conspiracy and potentially nullifying the vote of every Otero County voter who participated in the primary program,” Toulouse Oliver said in a statement. She accused the committee of knowingly violating state election laws.

New Mexico uses paper ballots that can be rechecked later in all elections and also relies on tabulators to quickly tally votes while minimizing human error. Election results are also checked by random samplers to verify the accuracy of the vote counting.

The Otero County Commission voted last week to manually recount ballots from the statewide primaries, removing state-mandated ballot boxes to facilitate absentee voting. and discontinue the use of Dominion’s voting machines during the general election.

On Monday, Holmes said those instructions from county commissions conflicted with state and federal election law, and that she would only recount the election by hand by court order.

“Electoral law does not allow me to manually tally these ballots or even form a council to do so. I can’t,” said Holmes, a Republican. “And I will obey the law.”

Holmes noted that the state-owned voting machines from Dominion have been publicly tested by Otero County officials and that the machines have also been independently pre-certified. Griffin said he and the commissioners did not see the process as credible.

“It’s a source over which we have no control or influence,” he said.

Mario Jimenez of the radical monitoring group Common Cause New Mexico says the public can view the test of pre-election counting machines in every county, and the certification notices are posted on every machine where voters can see them.

“They have no basis – other than “we don’t trust the machines” – to not certify the election,” Jimenez said of Otero County commissioners.

Although Trump won nearly 62% of the vote in Otero County in 2020, the county commissioners said they were not satisfied with the results of the state’s checks on the counting of votes as well as assurances with the secretary. Republican county that this year’s election will be accurate.

County commissioners could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday.

Marquardt, the commissioner, laughed Monday at the suggestion that a court could intervene in the electoral dispute.

“And after that? Will they send us to the horse? ” she speaks.

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