10-22-2022
NEWS
False election claims overwhelm local efforts to push back
Associated Press
Oct. 21, 2022
Updated: Oct. 21, 2022 9:30 p.m.
ESTANCIA, N.M. (AP) — Republican county commissioners in this swath of ranching country in New Mexico’s high desert have tried everything they can think of to persuade voters their elections are secure.
They approved hand-counting of ballots from the primary election in their rural county, encouraged the public to observe security testing of ballot machines and tasked their county manager with overseeing those efforts to make sure they ran smoothly.
None of that seems enough.
Here and elsewhere, Republicans as well as Democrats are paying a price for former President Donald Trump's relentless complaints and false claims about the 2020 election he lost.
Many Torrance County voters still don’t trust voting machines or election tallies, a conspiracy-fueled lack of faith that persists in rural areas across the U.S. Just weeks before consequential midterm elections, such widespread skepticism suggests that no matter the outcome, many Americans may not accept the results.
The belief that voting machines are being manipulated to sway the outcome of races is being promoted by Trump and his allies, many of whom have been spreading conspiracy theories throughout the country for nearly two years.
Their messages have penetrated deeply into the Republican Party, despite no evidence of manipulation or widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
That finding has been supported by multiple reviews in battleground states, by judges who have rejected dozens of court cases, by Trump’s own Department
of Justice and top officials in his administration.
The distrust erupted in Torrance County earlier this year, as commissioners were set to certify the results from the state’s June 7 primary. Torrance was among a handful of rural New Mexico counties that considered delaying certification as crowds gave voice to conspiracy theories surrounding voting equipment.
The commissioners responded to the vitriol by taking several unprecedented steps in an attempt to restore trust in voting and ballot counting.
They ordered an independent recount of primary election results by hand and assigned the county manager to recruit veteran poll workers and volunteers for two days of eye-straining efforts to sort and tally ballot images, with additional recounts.
They also had her oversee testing and certification of the county’s vote tabulators.
The dour outlook in the county of 15,000 has been propelled by the same forces at work in many other states.
In New Mexico, doubts about the 2020 election were fueled by a lawsuit from Trump’s campaign and a fake set of electors willing to certify him.
More recently, an assortment of local and out-of-state Trump allies have held forums throughout the state promoting conspiracy theories, including former White House strategist Steve Bannon, MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell and the Republican nominee for secretary of state, Audrey Trujillo.
Deep-seated distrust in elections has inspired independent challengers in the November general elections for the seats held by Schwebach and Commissioner Kevin McCall. Both of their opponents have stated that Joe Biden was not legitimately elected president.
The county released results on Thursday from its hand count of primary ballots, showing discrepancies between those tallies and the machine count in June_
though not enough to change individual races.
Experts say machine tabulators have been shown to be more accurate than hand counts, which are susceptible to human error.
Nevertheless, the results were greeted as vindication by doubters.
“While the numbers are new information, the fact that machines are untrustworthy is not new,” declared Jennette Hunt of Estancia.
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