Opinion: Workers, clerks get credit for smooth election

When Americans woke up last Wednesday, they still weren't sure who had won the presidential election as ballots were still being tabulated in several pivotal states.

But New Mexico was not one of them.

Despite rhetoric raising concerns of absentee balloting fraud, untallied or discarded absentee ballots, a Postal Service overwhelmed with mailed ballots, vulnerable drop boxes, long lines that would discourage in-person voting and not enough polling sites in general, the election went smoothly in New Mexico.

By 7:34 a.m. last Wednesday, the Secretary of State's Office posted final unofficial results of every race in the state. While about 2,000 absentee ballots remained to be counted that afternoon, a spokesman for Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver said around 95% of all ballots were tabulated by midnight Tuesday.

That was quite a feat considering the record-setting 912,565 total ballots cast statewide — eclipsing the previous record, set in the 2008 general election, by 79,000 votes.

Wednesday's smooth election and early tally wouldn't have been possible without the state's 33 county clerks and their staffs, which are the backbone of elections. Ditto for all the poll workers who stepped up after a shortage delayed things in the June primaries. All are to be commended for handling the 2020 general election professionally and efficiently.

Kudos to Toulouse Oliver for leading election reform efforts. And a supporting-actor award goes to our state Legislature, which through a 2019 statute allows counties that send out 10,000 or more absentee ballots to begin processing them 14 days before Election Day. Counties that mail out fewer than 10,000 absentee ballots can start processing them five days before Election Day. And although by law results are not counted until polls close at 7 p.m. election night, the early start proved to be a game-changer.

By contrast, poll workers in Pennsylvania weren't allowed to open absentee ballots until 7 a.m. Election Day. The delays are reminiscent of New Mexico elections past, when our state was among the last to have final results because of technical difficulties, inefficient systems, poll workers hauling boxes of results home, exhausted poll workers being sent home, etc.

A new law directed New Mexico poll workers responsible for counting absentee ballots to stop at 11 p.m. Tuesday to avoid errors from fatigue. While at first glance that rankled some because it meant a delayed vote count, it actually worked just fine, because the process didn't stop at 11 p.m. Other poll workers continued working, and county clerks uploaded results to the SOS throughout the night.

By 7:34 a.m. the day after Election Day, the tallying had almost concluded, with 1,925 of 1,925 precincts fully reporting results — minus the 2,000 uncounted absentee ballots. SOS spokesman Alex Curtas says a computer server problem caused a 20- to 30-minute pause of absentee-ballot counting in Doña Ana County on Tuesday, but no other major delays were reported.

Not bad, not bad at all — and in a pandemic, to boot.

— Albuquerque Journal