On Thursday, the Otero County Commission held a special meeting at the Flickinger Center in downtown Alamogordo to discuss the findings of the Otero County audit, which resulted in the uncovering of multiple abnormalities. Presenting on the fraud included IT expert Jeffrey Lenberg, Professor David Clements, Erin Clements, and Cynthia Butler, a statistician.
Butler’s findings from a statistical analysis of votes were that there are margins of error in Otero County around 20 to 30 percent, which she said “is consistent with mail-in ballot stuffing” and “digital ballot stuffing.”
Erin Clements presented the abnormalities in voting registration data. One interesting finding in her presentation was that trends in voter registrations through the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) continued in constant patterns even when Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham closed down the MVD during the pandemic, signifying algorithms artificially adding these new voters. She also mentioned ballot boxes in Doña Ana County found in a warehouse that had 3,000 to 5,000 ballots unsecured.
In Otero County’s case, Clements found indications that there were absentee ballot envelopes with multiple postmarks, birth years and Social Security numbers unfilled, indications that ballots were scanned twice, tabulators filling out unfilled ballot questions, tabulators counting folds as votes, and machines being incorrectly programmed for write-ins.
Lenberg focused on how the New Mexico voting machines were running out-of-date software while the 2020 General Election project file was missing from Otero County. Lenberg explained how risk-limiting audits, like those in New Mexico, do not work. He noted how Otero County is “one of the few counties to take action” and to “clear the air.” He noted how his inspection into fraud in Antrim County, Michigan triggered the Department of Homeland Security to demand a special prosecutor be appointed to persecute him.
The audit of Otero County resulted in a 500-page assessment report showing all the fraud found in the county. Recommendations for the County include decoupling the election process, where a tabulator company does not audit their own machines and where scans of ballots by the individual precinct are uploaded to a public site immediately following the election to ensure transparency. Other recommendations are included in their report.
David Clements said, “Public trust has been eviscerated,” regarding the election process.
The Otero County Commission approved two measures at the meeting. One was to pursue a lawsuit against Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver on a vote of 2-1 and a motion to remove drop boxes, remove voting machines, and hand count ballot on a vote of 2-1. Commissioners Marquardt and Couy Griffin voted in support of both measures, while the lone vote against both was Commissioner Gerald Matherly.
Matherly’s reservations regarding the measures were that he thought he would get in legal trouble if he supported them.
“This right here means absolutely nothing except we’re gonna get in trouble,” Matherly said regarding the second measure to remove drop boxes.
When discussing the lawsuit against Toulouse Oliver, Matherly said, “The Secretary of State is strictly doing her job to uphold what the representatives — the state law says. That’s in the book. To sue her is going to be a waste of time, in my eyes, because she was strictly doing her job.”
Erin Clements said in response to Matherly, “And the statutes are clear that the Secretary of State is the one who certifies the machine, Commissioner Matherly…. She’s certainly culpable for certifying the machines.”
