Politics

As exclusively reported on last week by the Piñon Post, New Mexico Democrats are fully prepared to use the underhanded practice of “ballot harvesting,” which entails activists harvesting ballots by going to specific peoples’ residences and homes and picking up their absentee ballots. 

There’s no telling what happens to these ballots once they are taken from the voter, which is what brings grave concern, and signs of voter fraud, as widely reported on. Multiple cases from California and North Carolina to Florida show multiple candidates ordering ballots for voters without their consent, then filling them out themselves or have the voters fill out the ballots while they are present at their homes, then dropping them off at polling locations.

Statistics show fraud occurring, such as in North Carolina’s 9th District race in 2018, where a Republican candidate allegedly paid a political activist hundreds of dollars to collect ballots and/or witness the filling out of ballots, which could be tracked by that person being a “witness” to the completion of the ballots. 

New Mexico doesn’t require a “witness” when filling out an absentee ballot, which makes it just that much easier for fraud to sneak in. According to the Daily Signal, “Previously, New Mexico required the signature of a witness as well as the voter on an absentee ballot. However, in 1993, the state Legislature passed a law removing that requirement.”

States are working to curb the fraud by passing bills banning the practice of ballot harvestings, such as in Montana and Arizona, with the Arizona law being challenged and upheld in federal appeals court. However, New Mexico Democrats revealed that the practice of ballot harvesting is happening this election, and targeting some of our most vulnerable communities, including senior citizens. 

One of the Democrat Party’s caucus chairs, Pamelya Herndon, revealed on a fundraising call for U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Ben Ray Luján and congressional candidate Rep. Xochitl Torres Small, that the Democrat Party is actively organizing members to visit elderly family members and drop off their ballots at polling locations. She said that the law allows people to deliver “at least one absentee ballot to a polling location” from a person who is not themselves.

She said, “Go by and talk to your senior citizens. See if those ballots have been put in the mail, and if not, pick it up and take it to a polling location… you can take at least one absentee ballot for a member of your family to a polling location. We want every ballot counted, Congressman [Ben Ray Luján] because we want to see that you and Xochitl Torres Small and everybody on that ballot for the Democratic Party gets elected.”

According to state law the practice of picking up and delivering absentee ballots is as follows:

A voter, caregiver to that voter or member of that voter’s immediate family may deliver that voter’s absentee ballot to the county clerk in person or by mail, provided that the voter has subscribed the outer envelope of the absentee ballot.

Democrats are clearly intent on utilizing absentee ballots to push them over the finish line, with ballot harvesting in full-swing to help them do just that. With races such as New Mexico’s Second Congressional District in play once again this year, the stakes could not be higher, as the District was flipped Democrat only due to mysterious absentee ballots being counted last-minute.

An independent audit found countless instances of abnormalities in the votes, with counties such as Doña Ana showing multiple irregularities. “Fully 25 percent of the people who purportedly requested absentee ballots from the Doña Ana County clerk didn’t mail them back,” according to the report, going on to say the situation was “suggestive of the possibility that someone was submitting absentee ballot applications for Democrats and those deemed likely to vote for Democrats.” 

“In Eddy County, Torres-Small only received 30.9% of the EV/ED vote (she lost by over two to one margin), but she won the absentee voting with 54.7% of the vote. The same anomaly occurred in both Otero and Sierra Counties — both unique and significant especially in Otero County because Herrell lost her home county in the absentee vote despite a sizeable victory on Election Day and early voting,” the report concluded. 

The stakes could not be higher this Election Day, as President Trump is on the top of the ticket, and Republicans look to take back both chambers of the state Legislature, as well as congressional seats, including the Second District. As Herndon explained, ballot harvesting is happening, and voters must keep a watchful eye on their ballots, meaning they should do all they can do drop off their absentee ballots themselves at a polling location or just vote in-person on Election Day to curb the fraud.