New Mexico launches web page challenging election misinformation

Per week forward of June 7 major elections, New Mexico has joined a number of different states launching web websites or net pages difficult falsehoods and confusion about election safety, voting and the way ballots are counted. 

New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver introduced the launch of a “Rumor vs. Actuality” web page below her workplace’s web site Tuesday. 

The web page addresses a number of questions concerning electoral processes in a frequently-asked-questions format, addressing poll confidentiality, safety of voter information, post-election audits, and citizenship necessities amongst different questions.

It additionally takes goal at “2000 Mules,” a movie produced by creator and right-wing media character Dinesh D’Souza that postulates paid poll stuffers swung the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden in opposition to then-president Donald Trump through 400,000 illegitimate votes. The idea has been debunked by election consultants and impartial fact-checkers.

The movie has been endorsed by Rebecca Dow and Ethel Maharg, two of 5 Republican major candidates in search of the nomination to problem Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham in November. A 3rd GOP candidate, Greg Zanetti, has additionally forged doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 election. 

“The film makes use of flawed assumptions and defective information to attempt to show its level in regards to the 2020 election,” the SOS webpage states, linking to articles from Politifact and the Related Press debunking a number of of the film’s claims. 

Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver is a Democrat who has been in workplace since 2016 and is in search of reelection in November.

Extra:Ought to your voter data be public? New Mexico challenges effort to submit election rolls on-line

Outcomes of an ABC/Ipsos ballot early this 12 months, performed forward of the primary anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol, discovered that People’ confidence in election integrity dropped throughout 2021, as the previous president and political allies have continued to assert he was the rightful winner of the 2020 contest and the administration of elections has grow to be a partisan battleground.

New Mexico was one among seven states the place Republicans submitted alternate slates of electors for the 2020 presidential contest regardless of Biden successful by practically 100,000 votes within the state. The Trump marketing campaign filed a lawsuit, later dropped, over New Mexico’s use of drop packing containers to gather ballots, one among a sequence of measures taken to boost public security within the first 12 months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“If the previous two years are any indication, efforts can be made to query the legitimacy of this election and different elections sooner or later,” Toulouse Oliver said in a information launch. “That’s why it’s so vital that voters get the information and why we’ve launched this useful resource.”

The workplace stated the web page can be up to date periodically as new points or rumors achieve in prevalence in New Mexico, and referred voters to their native county clerks’ places of work, which administer elections regionally, for extra questions. 

In format, the web page is just like a federal election safety “rumor management” web page maintained by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety company and related pages launched within the neighboring states of Arizona and Colorado.

Info on native county clerks’ places of work, polling places, voter registration and acquiring absentee ballots can be accessible at http://NMVote.org.

Algernon D’Ammassa may be reached at 575-541-5451, adammassa@lcsun-news.com or @AlgernonWrites on Twitter.