{"id":643656,"date":"2018-11-07T13:46:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-07T20:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=643656"},"modified":"2018-11-07T13:46:00","modified_gmt":"2018-11-07T20:46:00","slug":"recent-clerks-office-turmoil-didnt-cause-delayed-election-results-in-dona-ana-county-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/11\/recent-clerks-office-turmoil-didnt-cause-delayed-election-results-in-dona-ana-county-officials-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent clerk’s office turmoil didn’t cause delayed election results in Do\u00f1a Ana County, officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recent turmoil in the Do\u00f1a Ana County Clerk’s Office — including the resignation of one clerk and the appointment of a new one with no prior experience running elections — isn’t the reason the county is still tallying votes from Tuesday’s election<\/a>, officials say.<\/p>\n

Instead, says the new county clerk, Amanda L\u00f3pez Askin, an unexpected surge in absentee voting is the reason. At least 7,885 absentee ballots were submitted in Do\u00f1a Ana County this year, which is an approximately four-fold increase from recent elections.<\/p>\n

\"Amanda

Courtesy photo<\/p>

Amanda L\u00f3pez Askin<\/p><\/div>\n

“We were just not expecting a quadrupling, literally, of absentee ballots,” L\u00f3pez Askin said — and as a result the board charged with tallying those votes wasn’t sufficiently staffed to finish counting that many ballots on Election Day.<\/p>\n

That board, with additional help added on Wednesday, is working to finalize the absentee count. How quickly it will complete its work isn’t clear.<\/p>\n

“I know people want answers on election night. I know they want them as soon as they can get them, but I know they also want a fair election,” L\u00f3pez Askin said. Her office is working to be transparent and methodical about the process so people can trust the results, she said.<\/p>\n

Still, it’s difficult to ignore the recent turmoil in the clerk’s office given that Do\u00f1a Ana is one of two counties statewide that hasn’t yet finished counting votes — and the delay leaves a nationally watched congressional race up in the air<\/a>. The previous clerk, Scott Krahling, abruptly submitted his resignation<\/a> on Aug. 29. The public later learned that Krahling’s “intimate relationship” with a previous chief deputy clerk, Rose Ann Vasquez, who resigned in March, had harmed staff morale and created a perception, at least, of favoritism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The departures of Krahling and Vasquez left a leadership void in the office. Lindsey Bachman came on as the chief deputy clerk in May<\/a> and was still relatively new to the job when Krahling resigned a few months later. And the county commission appointed L\u00f3pez Askin — a former New Mexico State University regent who’d never worked on elections — to be county clerk on Sept. 11<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Through it all, some staffers have left the office, which currently has several vacancies. L\u00f3pez Askin said many longtime poll workers also chose to not return for this election. So she and Bachman oversaw Tuesday’s election with fewer staffers and volunteers than needed.<\/p>\n

“At the end of the day I have full confidence in the knowledge of our staff,” L\u00f3pez Askin said. “I would, moving forward, like to have more them. And that’s something we’re making a plan for.”<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver has “great confidence in the entire Do\u00f1a Ana County Clerk team and is looking forward to working with them in the coming months and years,” said\u00a0Alex Curtas, director of communications in the Secretary of State’s Office. He said the clerk’s office should be “commended\u00a0for the diligence and professionalism with which they administered the election” through record-breaking turnout.<\/p>\n

“Despite being short-staffed and having to contend with recent administrative changes to the office, County Clerk Amanda L\u00f3pez Askin, her deputy Lindsey Bachman, and their entire staff performed yeoman\u2019s work before and during the election, and are continuing that great work today as they tabulate Do\u00f1a Ana County\u2019s remaining absentee ballots,” Curtas said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new county clerk and her staff should be commended for ‘diligence and professionalism,’ the Secretary of State’s Office says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":625308,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2238,115,3351],"class_list":["post-643656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2018-election","tag-dona-ana-county","tag-voter-turnout"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643656"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":643691,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643656\/revisions\/643691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}