REGISTRATION SURGE

There has been a big jump in online voter registration activity since state officials sent hundreds of thousands of postcards to unregistered individuals.

SANTA FE — New Mexico election officials have witnessed a surge in online voter registration activity after 460,000 invitation postcards were mailed to residents who appear to be eligible to vote, but have not registered.

The New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office saw a nearly eight-fold increase in weekly online voter registration and updates to voter records. Elections Director Kari Fresquez says online registrations and updates increased to 8,778 last week from 1,189 the previous week.

The Secretary of State’s Office recently sent postcards to a list of unregistered voters generated by the Electronic Registration Information Center. The nonprofit center helps 21 member states improve the accuracy of voter registration lists. New Mexico joined the center in July.

The deadline to register for fall elections in New Mexico is Oct. 11, when absentee balloting begins.

State Rep. Nora Espinoza, the Republican candidate running to succeed Secretary of State Brad Winter, has criticized the voter registration mailing, pointing to its reliance on driver’s license records and raising concerns that postcards went out to noncitizens who may be encouraged to attempt to register and vote.

Rod Adair, a spokesman for Espinoza, said the Secretary of State’s Office should be focused on purging voter rolls of inaccurate entries before sending out registration mailings.

“The cards are confusing. It says, ‘Register to vote,’” Adair said. “There are lots of people who do not follow all instruction and the potential for fraud is huge.”

The postcards tell recipients they may be able to vote if they are 18 years or older, a resident of New Mexico and a U.S. citizen. The mailing was paid for by the Pew Charitable Trusts, which helped create the Electronic Registration Information Center in 2012, and by county clerks across the New Mexico.

The Democratic nominee for secretary of state, Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver, has been supportive of the recent state efforts to contact eligible, unregistered voters. Her campaign spokesman, Alan Packman, said that the “point of that process is both to ensure the security and integrity of the voter rolls, plus getting as many eligible voters on the rolls as possible.”

The number of registered voters in New Mexico increased by nearly 50,000 between January and August to 1,247,911. Registration increases among Democrats have outpaced those of Republicans and unaffiliated voters.