Voter fraud claims under investigation

Councilor says in complaint that mayor, others were part of scheme involving absentee ballots

State Attorney General Hector Balderas is investigating a Las Vegas, N.M., city councilor’s allegations of voter fraud in recent city elections.

Councilor David G. Romero, in a complaint filed April 9 with the Secretary of State’s Ethics Division, said Las Vegas Mayor Tonita Gurulé-Girón and others should be investigated for “violation of election law and possible voter fraud” because a large number of absentee ballots were mailed to the home of two of her campaign supporters and the home of the mayor’s sister.

Romero said Gurulé-Girón’s political supporters, Cordia Sammeth and Diane Lindsay, and council candidate Carla Benavidez — who lost to Romero in the April 17 runoff — were part of a scheme involving absentee ballots.

Romero was not yet on the council when he filed the com-

plaint. In April, he won the seat that had been held by his father, David L. Romero.

“I have received information they are getting absentee ballots sent to the home of [Sammeth and Lindsay] and filling them out,” the younger Romero said in his complaint.

Romero said he also knew “of other addresses that ballots are being sent to in which it is clear the voters whose names are on ballots are not residents of that address … these individuals, are, in my opinion, committing fraud by getting ballots sent and then filled out by the campaign team of candidates, the candidate or the mayor.”

Gurulé-Girón denied having anything to do with the absentee ballots and said the complaint was just the latest assault on her administration by her critics.

In a text message to a reporter, the mayor wrote: “Councilor Romero’s statement is untrue.”

She added: “I don’t understand why councilor Romero is contesting an election that he won and making false accusations in an election that he won. Under most circumstances, a candidate that wins does not contest his own election, unless they have ulterior motives.”

Romero actually filed his complaint several days before the runoff election.

Of the 110 absentee ballots mailed, nine were sent to people at Sammeth’s and Lindsay’s address on Sperry Avenue. Sammeth and Lindsay did not return a phone call Tuesday asking for comment. Benavidez couldn’t be reached for comment.

Another eight absentee ballots went to people at an address on Taos Street — which is the residence of Gurulé-Girón’s sister, Elizabeth Gurulé.

Gurulé said in a telephone interview Tuesday that five of the ballots went to her and four family members who get their mail at her house. However, she said she didn’t receive any ballots for three of the absentee ballot recipients listed by the Las Vegas City Clerk.

Investigators for the Attorney General’s Office have twice been to her house to ask about absentee ballots, Gurulé said.

She blamed critics of her sister for using the absentee ballot issue to smear the mayor.

“They’re trying to make it hard on her,” Gurulé said. “This has got to stop.”

Romero’s complaint doesn’t offer any evidence that the mayor and the others fraudulently filled out the absentee ballots.

But in both council races in the April runoff, candidates favored by the mayor won by large margins among the absentee ballots counted. And in one of those races, the Ward 1 seat, the absentee ballots made the difference.

Among in-person voters, candidate Oliver L’Esperance defeated incumbent Councilor David Ulibarri by a tally of 216202. However, Ulibarri received 43 votes in absentee balloting while L’Esperance got only one. Ulibarri won the race by 28 votes.

In the Ward 4 race, Romero got the votes of 18 absentee voters while his challenger, Benavidez, got 48. However, that wasn’t enough to beat Romero, who won at three out of four polling places with in-person voters. His victory margin was 17 votes, 280-263.

Gurulé-Girón, who was elected in 2016, was the center of a state auditor’s investigation that found problems with the city’s procurement procedures, which critics say was tainted by political favoritism. She’s also a defendant in several lawsuits by former city officials, including a former public works director who says the mayor fired him after he refused to award a contract to a friend of Gurulé-Girón.

The alleged abuse of absentee ballots in Romero’s complaint is similar to alleged crimes in another Northern New Mexico case. In February, a Rio Arriba County grand jury charged Laura Seeds, the wife of Española city councilor and unsuccessful mayoral candidate Robert Seeds, with 10 counts of possession of another person’s absentee ballot for the 2016 municipal election, as well as additional felony counts of conspiracy to violate the municipal election code and making false statements to obtain absentee ballots. Seeds was later indicted on additional electionrelated charges.

Her case is pending. Jury selection is scheduled to begin in September.