County tops 7,000 absentee ballots mailed

County tops 7,000 absentee ballots mailed; clerk’s office corrects clerical error in one precinct

Chief Deputy Doña Ana County Clerk Lindsey Bachman said the clerk’s office has corrected a clerical error that impacted 84 voters in the county’s precinct 73. “The error resulted in the incorrect listing of State Senate and State House candidate on ballots within that precinct,” Bachman said. “Because no votes had been cast in person from voters who live in this precinct, this error did not impact in person voting,” she said. The 84 absentee ballots that were incorrect included two overseas ballots, Bachman said. None of the impacted voters had returned their completed absentee ballots as of Saturday, May 9, she said.

“After analyzing the issue, we acted swiftly and carefully to ensure that those 84 voters were issued corrected absentee ballots, and we sent those corrected ballots by certified mail on Monday (May 11) with a memo from the clerk explaining the error,” Bachman said. “We are addressing the error similarly with the two overseas absentee voters. Returned, corrected ballots will be hand-tallied, and the incorrect ballots have been invalidated.”

As of mid-afternoon Monday, May 11, Bachman said the county has mailed more than 7,350 absentee ballots to eligible voters in the county who had submitted absentee ballot applications and had those applications approved by the clerk’s office. They included 5,783 Democrats, 39 Libertarians and 1,536 Republicans.

Eligible voters can request an absentee ballot through May 28 by mailing in a paper application or by

applying online at NMVote.org. (The online application takes less than five minutes to complete). All absentee ballots must be returned to a polling location in the county or to the county clerk’s office by 7 p.m. on Tuesday, June 2 (election day. More information is available at DACElections.com.

Early Voting begins at seven alternate voting sites throughout the county at 11 a.m. Saturday, May 16.