Biased Gatekeepers: Election Interference from New Mexico’s Election Officials

Election officials are the one class of public servant that must avoid all perception of overt political bias. The public must trust that their election officials take their duty to conduct fair elections more seriously than their personal political opinions.

Sadly, many New Mexico election officials are not even trying to appear politically neutral. The most blatant examples come from the Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver. Here are three rabidly anti-Trump/anti-Republican Facebook posts that can still be found on her page:

Oliver is ultimately the person responsible for selecting the election system used in New Mexico and promulgating rules on how elections will be carried out. Both the system and the rules have been criticized widely: For example, it has been discovered that despite gaslighting to the contrary, New Mexico’s official election results are processed on the internet using a program called SERVIS.

Oliver was also a strong proponent of accepting money from the highly partisan Mark Zuckerberg who bribed election officials all over the country with funds for their offices if they would install ballot “drop boxes” in their counties. These drop boxes were shown to be massively abused by illegal ballot harvesters all over the country in numbers that were larger than the margin of victory in the presidential race in many states. Thanks to Oliver, Senator Katy Duhigg and Senator Daniel Ivey-Soto, drop boxes are now a statutorily mandated part of New Mexico’s elections.

Shortly after Oliver made her hyper-partisan Facebook posts, she was elected President of the National Association of Secretaries of State – an organization called out by Congress for being part of an elaborate censorship scheme to shut down conservative voices on the internet. It’s no wonder that 60 percent of Americans no longer trust our election process. Why would any New Mexican believe Oliver will not do everything in her power to interfere in New Mexico’s elections to ensure the state “stays blue”?

Sadly, evidence that election officials in New Mexico are overtly political does not end with the Secretary of State.

SANDOVAL COUNTY:

The Sandoval County Clerk, Anne Brady Romero, manages the county’s Bureau of Elections website. Under the “Community Outreach” section is a link that directs users to the League of Women Voters of Central New Mexico. Although the League claims it is non-partisan, its website openly endorses positions on contentious issues ranging from abortion rights to environmental policies.

The League is also opposed to meaningful election reform. Polling shows that as many as 9 percent of the ballots cast in the 2020 election were not cast by citizens – a problem that will have only gotten worse over the last four years of wide-open border policies. To stem this tide of fraud, the SAVE Act was introduced in Congress to require states to actively remove non-citizens from the voter rolls and ensure that only citizens of the United States are allowed to register to vote. However, the League has advertised its opposition to this common-sense legislation.

The League joined a consortium of far-left NGOs to persecute Colorado citizens who went door-to-door to determine the accuracy of Colorado’s voter rolls. The defendants in the League’s lawfare found major problems with the rolls and evidence of significant election fraud. Why would the League be opposed to citizens exposing legitimate problems with the voter rolls?

Further examination of Sandoval County’s website shows another link to NM Counties. This organization actively lobbied to restrict public access to electoral information in 2023 by supporting SB 180. This legislation directly contradicts the spirit of the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act.

Romero’s decision to share links to non-neutral sources using taxpayer funds raises questions about her own neutrality and fitness to run county elections.

BERNALILLO COUNTY:

Similarly, Bernalillo County’s election page, overseen by Clerk Linda Stover, Emerge alumni 2019, includes a “Helpful Links” dropdown that lists the same NM Counties link, potentially spreading the same restricted view on election transparency. Furthermore, a link to the National Disability Rights Network, which might seem innocuous, reveals a strong political stance opposing the SAVE Act.

Adding to the perplexity is a link about the Solar Rights Act found on the Bureau of Elections page, ostensibly out of context. This link, which discusses the rights to solar energy seems oddly placed on an electoral information page, diverting the topic from elections to energy rights without clear relevance.

DONA ANA COUNTY:

During the 2020 election, Republican poll challengers were thrown out of the room when the absentee ballots were being processed. The Deputy County Clerk Lindsey Bachman, Emerge alumni 2019, claimed one of the four Republican challengers physically grabbed an election official and temporarily halted the processing of absentee ballots. The Dona Ana County Clerk, Amanda Askin, Emerge alumni 2019, and the Secretary of State both jumped on and widely publicized the story. However, their account was unable to be corroborated by witnesses or the surveillance video in the room. Bachman kicked all four Republican challengers out of the room and continued to process absentee ballots without bi-partisan oversight as required by New Mexico law. Bachman has since been promoted to a position within the Secretary of State’s office.

Public Trust at Stake

These findings underscore a larger issue: the erosion of public trust. When election officials act in an overtly partisan manner, exclude poll challengers from any party, and provide links to biased information on taxpayer funded websites, they tip the scales of the public’s understanding and decision-making.

Call to Action

It’s crucial for voters to remain vigilant and scrutinize the behavior of their election officials. The government should not be in the business of endorsing specific viewpoints under the guise of voter assistance. This article aims to ignite a discussion on the need for more stringent regulations and oversight concerning the behavior from election officials in New Mexico.

Invitation to Reader

We encourage readers to visit their local government websites, check the sources linked there, and report any bias they find. Let us know if your county election officials participate in needlessly inflammatory partisan rhetoric. It’s through collective vigilance that we can hope to maintain the impartiality of our electoral processes.