New Mexico Republicans Alleging Voting Machine Fraud Certify Election Results

Machine Judge Valerie Del Plain waits by the ballot box at Mesilla Elementary School during the New Mexico Primary in Mesilla, New Mexico. REUTERS/Paul Ratje

LOS ANGELES, June 17 (Reuters) – A Republican-controlled New Mexico county commission that refused to recognize this month’s election results after citing baseless conspiracy theories about voting machines relented on Friday. to legal pressure and certified the results.

Otero County commissioners voted 2-1 to certify the results of the county’s June 7 primary election, but only after being ordered to do so by the New Mexico Supreme Court and after threats of legal action by the Democratic state attorney general.

The commissioner who still voted against certifying the results, Couy Griffin, did so hours after he was sentenced for violating the US Capitol during the January 6, 2021 riots.

Griffin, a voter fraud conspirator and founder of “Cowboys for Trump,” avoided jail time, was fined $3,000 and received a year of supervised release with a requirement to complete 60 hours of community service.

Former Republican President Donald Trump has continued to promote falsehoods that Democratic President Joe Biden stole the 2020 election. Many Republicans believe Trump even after revelations at a congressional hearing this month that the former president’s own daughter and others close allies repulsed them.

There are fears of more election confusion in the future due to the unfounded conspiracy theories about voting machines and vote counting that they now have on many GOP lawmakers and rank-and-file GOP voters.

Otero’s initial move not to certify comes ahead of the November midterm elections that will decide control of the US Congress, with both chambers now narrowly in Democratic hands, as well as the 2024 presidential election, in which former President Donald Trump has indicated that he could seek a second term in the White House.

U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to charge Trump with inciting the deadly Jan. 6 attack, said Otero’s initial refusal to certify was a worrying harbinger of turmoil. upcoming election.

“Wake up, America and the Republican Party, this will destroy us,” Kinzinger, a member of the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, tweeted Wednesday.

New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, who had previously said the county commission was acting “illegally,” expressed relief that the election results had been certified.

“Otero County voters and the candidates who duly won their primaries can now rest assured that their voices have been heard and that the general election can proceed as planned,” Toulouse Oliver said in a statement.

Information from Tim Reid; Edited by Sandra Maler

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