Another top employee leaving state Election Bureau

The Election Bureau in the Secretary of State’s Office is in for another big personnel change.

Daniel Miera, the elections administrator in that office, is leaving later this month, just days after the state canvass of last week’s primary election, to return to Taos and become the town’s manager, the Taos News is reporting. He was hired away from Taos, where he was assistant town manager, earlier this year for the state job.

The culprit is a pay raise. Miera will earn $90,000 annually in his new job, the news service reported. He was making $64,500 in the elections job.

Secretary of State Mary Herrera was criticized earlier this year for hiring Miera, who had no elections experience at the time. The criticism was covered as part of a Santa Fe New Mexican article in March detailing personnel changes in the office.

At the time, the director of the Election Bureau, Daniel Ivey-Soto, had just left his job to seek a vacant judgeship in Albuquerque. That left the rookie Miera as next in line at the Bureau. Herrera, in defending herself from criticism, argued at the time that she has six years of experience in running elections from her time as Bernalillo County Clerk. She also said Miera learns quickly.

The June primary ran fairly smoothly, but now Miera is on to another job.

And the November election, one of the biggest in the state’s history, is approaching.