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Record number of Sandoval County residents show up first day of early voting
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BERNALILLO — Hats are in the ring, and now the election is beginning its course with early voting, which began Oct. 8 at the Sandoval County Administration Building.
Chief Sandoval County Clerk Anne Brady-Romero says the turnout was steady with the line holding its shape for most of the day. At around 1 p.m., the count was at 671 votes, according to Tina Dominguez, Bureau of Elections manager. Later that day, Brady-Romero says at just over 1,100 votes, the county had the highest vote count ever. The Wednesday after, the vote count was a little over 900.
“I’m sure it’s increased by now,” she said as more voters lined up to cast a ballot.
“It’s been a steady flow since 8 o’clock this morning. People have just been coming and coming and coming.”
She added that at one point they had to reroute people to create more space for the line. They also doubled the amount of voting booths to make it go faster. The county also had accessible voting for those in wheelchairs and availability for the hearing impaired to get help, which started last year.
Chief Deputy Clerk Joey Dominguez said that Sandoval County Administration was the only clerk location open out of all county clerks on Oct. 8. He added that once expanded early voting begins Oct. 19, people will have the opportunity to vote in all 33 clerk locations in the county.
“All 33 county clerks have participated in tabletop exercises, have implemented security response points collaboratively, so I think all of us are prepared to provide the voters a safe and secure voting process,” he said.
The process of getting ready for an election takes time and effort on the clerk’s part. Joey says the priority is to hire poll workers within the community.
“I would just remind the public that their friends, neighbors, uncles, nephews and their grandparents are poll workers who we hire. We hire over 400 poll workers, and it’s their friends, neighbors and family who are administering elections,” he said. “When I go in and vote, it’s my friend and my neighbor who’s issuing me a ballot and that says a lot, right? That people you’ve known your entire life are serving in the poll worker capacity, right? So I trust the process. I think the voters should trust the process.”
Tina says there are criminal and civil penalties in place for those who would conspire to violate the election plan. This has been a consistent concern at Sandoval County Commission with a group that has regularly attended for a few years with the intention of speaking about election integrity in public comment.
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Both Tina and Joey say there are checks and balances for a reason.
“There’s not one person who can unilaterally change a vote. Despite all the conspiracy theories there — there are judges in place, clerks in place to make sure that one bad actor can’t touch something and try to sabotage it. We have watchers, observers and challengers that are present observing the process as well. It’s part of that accountability and the part of the election system to make sure the clerk’s office is conducting themselves appropriately,” Joey said.
Leading up to the election, the clerk’s office ensures that all 23 early voting sites will have the right equipment set up and delivered to ensure that 165 tabulators are certified.
“They go through the accuracy and logic testing to verify that we are tabulating correctly. It is a logistical challenge, but they’ve met that challenge, and we’re prepared next week to start setting up all 23 early voting sites,” Joey said.
Voters can go to any of the voting sites in Sandoval County. Same-day registration is available. Joey says it will take 15 minutes to process the registration, then people can vote. Registrants will need two forms of ID. For students, the state of New Mexico accepts higher education student ID or transcript.
For more information on the election visit the Secretary of State website at sos.nm.gov or the county voting website at scnmvote.com.
