Concern about county’s absentee ballots grows

County elections official says anyone who wants to vote has alternative ways to do it

Will delays in mailing out absentee ballots mean that people who tried to vote in Doña Ana County don’t get to cast a ballot in Tuesday’s election?

And, if so, will the number of people who try but aren’t able to vote be significant enough to affect the outcome of any races?

Those are the questions Democrats, Republicans and others are trying to process since learning on Friday that the county’s Bureau of Elections hasn’t complied this election cycle with a state statute that requires that absentee ballots be mailed out within 24 hours of the office receiving requests for the ballots.

While there are varying interpretations of what it means — GOP officials allege that it could disenfranchise 3,000 to 5, 000 voters, while others argue the number of disenfranchised might be minimal or even zero — everyone appears to agree on one thing: the need to spread the word about alternative voting methods to as many people as possible before it’s too late.

The elections bureau is in compliance with the portion of the law that requires that all absentee ballots be mailed out by today. The last batch of approximately 20 ballots will be mailed out today, according to acting Supervisor of Elections Mario Jimenez.

But the county’s noncompliance with a second provision in state law was discovered Friday afternoon when GOP officials met with John Caldwell, the county’s attorney, about the delay in people receiving absentee ballots. That provision requires that ballots be mailed out within 24 hours of the county receiving requests for those ballots. The county has been struggling to keep up with the high level of requests for absentee ballots and hasn’t met the 24-hour deadline.

The impact isn’t immediately clear. Several Democratic and Republican officials and non-partisan voting groups have contacted me since Friday afternoon to express concern, but some facts are in dispute. While county GOP Chairman Mark Van Dyke said he was shocked to see 3,000 to 5,000 absentee ballots at the clerk’s office on Friday afternoon still waiting to be mailed out, Caldwell and Jimenez both said that number is exaggerated and said about 700 ballots went out on Friday, leaving only about 20 to go out today.

Other ways to vote

Jimenez said he believes the impact of the absentee-ballot situation will be minimal.

“I don’t want anybody to think they’re disenfranchised, because they’re not,” he said. “Everybody still has an opportunity to vote.”

Among the alternative methods of voting for those who haven’t received or returned absentee ballots:

• They can vote in person, today before 6 p.m., at any of the county’s early voting sites.

• They can vote in-person on Election Day at their polling place.

• People who are homebound, in hospice or in another setting because of a health problem or physical ailment that prevents them from voting in person can send someone with a signed note from the voter and a health-care provider explaining the situation. The county is required to provide that authorized representative a ballot and allow that person to return the ballot after it’s been filled out.

• Those who are physically unable to walk, if they can get a ride to a polling place, can vote from their vehicles. The individuals who drive them to polling places, or elections workers, can feed their ballots into counting machines for them.

• Military personnel stationed outside New Mexico and anyone living overseas can request, even on Election Day, that their ballots be sent to them by e-mail or fax, and they can return their ballots the same way. Jimenez said such people were advised of that option months ago, and he recommends that, if they haven’t already received or returned their absentee ballots by mail, they call the office and vote that way instead. The only drawback is that they have to sign forms waiving their right to privacy because an elections worker will see their faxed or e-mailed ballot.

Mark Van Dyke, the county GOP chairman, said Jimenez’s suggestions require “extraordinary efforts” from citizens who did what they needed to do to vote absentee but aren’t able to through no fault of their own. He’s worried that people won’t be able to vote because they don’t learn of the alternative ways to vote and don’t receive their absentee ballots in time to vote. He’s also concerned about people learning about the situation and not voting because they’re discouraged.

Van Dyke called the situation “outrageous” and said it’s “icing on the cake of problems that have haunted the Bureau of Election for years through multiple administrations.” And, citing the estimate of 3,000 to 5,000 ballots being mailed out on Friday that Jimenez and Caldwell say is wrong, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Steve Pearce called the situation “beyond unacceptable” and alleged that “thousands of New Mexicans will not be able to vote as a result of this action.”

Jimenez, Pearce said, “should lose his job, and we should install someone who can oversee this election fairly and competently.”

Conflict in clerk’s office

The revelation about the county not complying with the 24-hour statute comes after Secretary of State Mary Herrera said on Thursday that she was concerned that workers are stretched too thin in Doña Ana County and revealed that the vast majority of complaints her office received this week came from Doña Ana County and related primarily to absentee voting.

Jimenez said at the time that his office isn’t understaffed and things are running smoothly.

But Caldwell said today that Jimenez and his staffers have been working long hours. He said they are doing a great job in the face of incredibly high voter turnout and what Caldwell called “conflict” in the clerk’s office. Asked for specifics, he said it’s common that employees of the records division in the clerk’s office help out with elections, but a split that currently exists between records and elections meant that few workers from records were helping with elections until two days ago. Caldwell said there are “people in recording who would like to see (the Bureau of Elections) fail.”

He didn’t elaborate, but Jimenez pointed out that his boss in the elections bureau, Lynn Ellins, was one of three employees of the office who ran earlier this year in the Democratic primary for clerk. The others were current Clerk Rita Torres and Martha Lucero, an employee of the records division.

Ellins won that primary, and Lucero is supporting his Republican opponent, Sid Goddard, in the clerk’s race. She wrote in a letter published in the Oct. 24 edition of the Las Cruces Bulletin that the negative attention the elections problems have brought to the office “as well as other issues” have “created a rift between the two departments” that has “led to countless personnel issues and decreased morale.”

In addition to that conflict, Jimenez is running an office that is without its supervisor, Ellins, who by state law can’t work because he’s a candidate for county clerk. And Torres suffers from health problems and isn’t as involved in running the office as she once was.

Caldwell said Jimenez, in the face of the conflict and having to step in for Ellins, has “proven to be very knowledgeable about the election code except for this one issue” and done a good job running the election.

“I think some people are going to be disenfranchised by this,” he said of the absentee-ballot situation. “I hope it won’t be huge.”

If you have questions about voting, call the elections bureau at (575) 647-7428 or the non-partisan group Election Protection at (866) OUR-VOTE or in Spanish at (888) VE-Y-VOTA.