AG: Otero commissioners must certify vote
Balderas threatens to take legal action
SANTA FE — New Mexico’s top prosecutor on Thursday told a Republican-led county commission to comply with an order to certify results from its primary election, the latest development in a case arising from far-right conspiracy theories over voting machines that have spread across the country.
A spokesperson for Attorney General Hector Balderas said the Otero County Commission “must comply with the rule of law or we will take legal action.”
The governing commission in Otero County refused to certify the local results of the state’s June 7 primary because of unspecified concerns with the equipment, even though it has identified no problems with the Dominion systems used by the county to tally paper ballots.
Following the 2020 election, various allies of former President Donald Trump claimed that Dominion voting systems had somehow been manipulated as part of an elaborate scheme to steal the election, which was won by President Joe Biden.
The Secretary of State’s office asked the attorney general to investigate the Otero County Commission for possible violations of state election and government ethics laws. That came after the state Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the county commission to certify its election results.
Otero County Attorney Roy Nichols said an emergency meeting of the commission is scheduled for Friday, ahead of the state’s certification deadline. He said he could not speak for the commissioners and it’s unclear whether they will vote to certify the results. If they don’t, he said it would be possible for state officials to pursue election code violations against them.
So far, all but 10 of New Mexico’s 33 counties have certified their results from the statewide primary. No other county officials have said publicly that they intend to vote against certification.
There is no evidence of widespread fraud or manipulation of voting equipment in the 2020 election, and election experts say the refusal to certify results of free and fair elections threatens the democratic process.