How Does That Work?: Election Integrity in New Mexico

As Americans prepare to cast votes on questions as local as approving a local library bond and as big as choosing our next president, it is important to know how well prepared New Mexico’s elections administrators are to ensure the integrity of those votes.

This year, New Mexico’s elections administration system was ranked best in the nation by the prestigious Elections Performance Index (EPI), a project of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Election Data and Science Lab described as “a non-partisan, objective measure of U.S. election administration.”

Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver helps voters understand how New Mexico’s election system works to protect our votes. We’ve excerpted some of those questions to help readers understand how our voting system works when you cast your vote:

Can non-citizens vote?

No. You must be registered in order to vote. Every person who registers to vote in New Mexico must attest that they are a citizen of the U.S. and a resident of New Mexico and must provide voter identification [when they vote for the first time].

Does New Mexico use paper ballots?

Yes. Every election that occurs in New Mexico uses 100% paper ballots. Why is that important? It’s one of the ways we ensure New Mexico has the most secure elections in the nation. It’s a low-tech solution that makes our elections more secure in an age of high-tech threats. Paper ballots allow for auditing and verification of automated vote counting systems and they enable us to recount a single race or an entire election should the need arise.

How are voter rolls maintained to ensure election integrity?

One of the main points of misinformation about voting and elections claims that voter rolls are not regularly cleaned and thus the integrity of our elections is questioned. This is a pernicious bit of misinformation that leads people to question the outcomes of our elections, so let’s clear it up.

The voter list maintenance processes and procedures of the Secretary of State’s Office and New Mexico county clerks not only follow all state and federal guidelines to keep our voter rolls clean and up-to-date, but go above and beyond those requirements.

During the voter list maintenance process New Mexico’s election administrators, as required by law, must maintain and update their voter rolls continually — everything from checking obituaries, receiving monthly reports from NM Vital Statistics about deceased individuals, and suspending or reinstating voters based on conviction notices from the Department of Corrections. This is done in conjunction with the proactive, pro-voter measures already in place in New Mexico, such as automated voter registration, all-mail special elections, and online and same day voter registration. All of these systems combine to ensure that voter information is up-to-date in New Mexico, resulting in our state having some of the “cleanest” voter records in the United States.

New Mexico also participates in the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). ERIC uses information from motor vehicle departments, Social Security Administration records, and other databases to compare voters across all member states and securely shares this information with member states.

Additionally, County clerks send frequent election-related material to registered voters at their registration addresses and then use that information to do voter record list maintenance.

Are independent, post-election audits performed in New Mexico to ensure the accuracy of election results?

Yes. There are two main ways the accuracy of election results are ensured here in New Mexico with audits:

1. Following an election, the election results are canvassed or audited so that accuracy is ensured. Canvassing first happens at the county level where county staff review the results. Then, another canvass is completed by a new team of staff at the Secretary of State’s Office. Finally, the results that have already been reviewed at the county and state level are audited by an independent contractor before they are forwarded to the New Mexico Board of Canvass to be made official.
2. New Mexico conducts a risk-limiting audit following every statewide election. This process involves randomly selecting races and precincts throughout the state and hand counting the results in those precincts. The hand counted results are then compared to the normal machine counted results to ensure accuracy. Any discrepancies between the results are thoroughly investigated.

The results of every independent post-election audit that’s been conducted in New Mexico since 2004 are downloadable from our website.