A preliminary report on New Mexico’s Nov. 4 local elections found that Election Day voting in general went smoothly in every corner of the state — and offered suggestions on how election officials can improve next year. The findings came just hours before the State Canvass Board unanimously certified the official results of this year’s elections and ordered automatic recounts in 34 races throughout the state.
The findings from Observe New Mexico Elections, a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for transparency in elections, reflect the observations of 111 volunteers at 106 polling sites across 11 New Mexico counties. The organization’s full findings are expected to be issued in a more exhaustive January report.
“In general, polls opened and closed on time and experienced minimal disruptions to voting in the locations we observed,” Observe New Mexico Elections co-leader Carmen López said in a statement. “Of course, there are always areas for improvement. Observers noted that counties generally did not train poll workers on how to meet federal and state requirements related to translation and interpretation services, posting clearer signage, and providing required accommodations for people with disabilities. That’s why this effort is so important — nonpartisan observation helps show what’s working well and where election processes can be improved and made more consistent and accessible.”
The report focused on five key areas of elections: logic and accuracy testing, poll worker training, absentee ballot processing, early in-person voting and Election Day voting.
Logic and accuracy testing refers to the computers that tally and read voters’ ballots. Before an election, county clerks test their voting machines to ensure they count without any errors. The Tuesday report from ONME found that election officials clearly followed standard procedures on these tests and noted that, in a few instances, polling locations lacked a space where members of the public could comfortably observe this process.
Poll worker trainings across the state were “professional, organized, and welcoming,” according to the report, and workers learned “how to open and operate polling locations, issue and process ballots, and close the polls.” While the overall quality of the trainings was strong, the report said that observers saw some trainers truncating the sessions when many of the poll workers had served in previous elections. Trainers also rarely fully explained accessibility and language-related voter accommodations, the report said.
Absentee ballot processing was “well-organized, transparent, and secure in all three locations observed,” according to the report. It noted that physical accessibility to the facility was limited in Las Cruces.
Early in-person voting largely went smoothly, though observers noted that some voting sites “lacked instructions inside voting booths about how to cast a ballot or information about spoiled and provisional ballots.” Also of concern: Such information was not always posted in several languages, even in areas where the Voting Rights Act requires it.
Voting on Election Day generally went well, but observers reported that some locations did not display information “about how to complete a ballot, what to do if they made a mistake, or how to contact election officials” and that some only posted information in English. In a handful of cases, voters did not clearly understand district boundaries and left without voting, according to the report.
Click here to read the full article by Joshua Bowling from Source New Mexico.