The 252 new machines arrived late last week, according to the Las Cruces Sun-News.
“It’s not going to be easy because we’re changing election horses mid-stream,” he told the Sun-News. “Usually you want to start out on a smaller election like a school board, but here we’re going off the high dive.”
County employees will be trained on the new machines in September, the newspaper reported, and poll workers will be trained in October.
County Clerk Rita Torres first said several months ago during a commission meeting that she didn’t know whether the county would make the switch to the controversial system in November because the machines might not arrive in time to train workers. She later said they would not be used in November.
But that was before the recent shakeup in the elections bureau that included the firing of then-Supervisor Mari Langford and the hiring of Ellins. Because he is a temporary worker, the county did not have to follow normal hiring procedures, allowing him to start work quickly as the election approaches.
Ellins will only work through the completion of the November election process.
He is taking on a huge task in switching to the new ballot system with a short time before the election.