Last Thursday, on April 21st, a group of volunteers gathered at the Torrance County Clerk warehouse in Estancia, NM to conduct a public records inspection of the thousands of ballots retained from the 2020 General Election. After several days of high winds and blustery weather, the volunteers who began to arrive at the warehouse remarked to County employees already present about the sudden reprieve the weather seemed to offer the group that day.
The newly elected Clerk, Yvonne Otero, was also present to offer a warm welcome to the volunteers who took time away from work and family to support the civic effort. Just as the beautiful day marked a deviation from the preceding days of blustering wind, April 21st would prove to be a pleasant reprieve from the preceding years and months of strife nationwide which made phrases such as “election integrity” and “election fraud” common place. On this day, however, instead of obfuscation there was transparency. Instead of strife, a pleasant air of mutual interest in civic duty was shared among the diverse group of volunteers and government employees.
As the day unfolded, the Clerk and her employees carefully accounted for every ballot permitted to be scanned by the volunteers, from the moment each ballot left its sealed box to the moment it returned. When considering well over 7,000 ballots were cast in the 2020 election in Torrance County, the task of monitoring the inspection of each ballot was a serious matter, executed with equal seriousness and focus by the Clerk.
Yvonne Otero, Torrance County Clerk
The Clerk is the chief officer responsible for the administration of elections in the county. In addition to the administration of elections, the Clerk’s duties also require she support:
- Probate Court
- The County Commission
- Real Estate transactions
- Marriage Licensing
- Business Licensing
Volunteers commended the Clerk for her ability to balance transparency with security as she worked alongside other employees to maintain a perfect accounting for every ballot scanned. Similarly, the volunteers recorded “chain-of-custody” information about each ballot they scanned, careful to maintain a separation of duties between volunteers. The professionalism with which the volunteers and employees both fulfilled their roles made them indistinguishable from each other.
Upon scanning every ballot, volunteers loaded the scanning equipment they brought for the occasion and expressed gratitude to the Clerk and her employees for their professionalism and transparency. Although the day was unremarkable, the experience highlights the appeal of Torrance County to the many migrating to it from urban centers in this and other states.
While government in Torrance County is far from perfect, its openness to involvement by the community reinforces the community’s trust in its leaders. Perhaps the conservative County leadership endorses the famous quote by President Ronald Reagan, “Trust but verify”, made famous in December 1987 after the signing of the INF Treaty with Mikhail Gorbachev.
See the follow-up to this story, “Experts Expose Election Vulnerabilities.”
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