2025 local election canvass completed; discrepancy discovered

The canvass meeting of the Valencia County Commission for the 2025 Regular Local Election was a bit rough, but in the end the process worked.

Valencia County Chief Deputy Clerk Brenda Hume (formerly Green) presented the canvass documents containing the unofficial numbers which will be sent to the New Mexico Secretary of State’s office for its canvass to the commissioners on Nov. 12.

On Monday, Nov. 10, as county bureau of elections staff began compiling the canvassing reports, Hume said, a problem was found.

“We realized the ballots cast numbers didn’t balance. There was an increase in ballots cast here versus what the (New Mexico Secretary of State) had in their system,” Hume said.

The source of the discrepancy was a high-speed counting machine used for absentee ballots, which was certified prior to the election beginning but hadn’t been used to count ballots, she said.

During the certification of all the machines used during an election, there is a “test deck” of ballots run through each tabulator. This year there were 122 test ballots to account for all the variations possible in the combination of local races.

“We tested and certified two high-speed scanners but only used one. After they were certified, the test results were purged from the system,” Hume said. “Everything was zeroed out.”

After machines are certified, “zero reports” are run on them to verify there isn’t any leftover data from the test ballots. However, the results from the extra counting machine created a load file and it was among the files uploaded to the SOS system after polls closed on Election Day.

“This is why we are very clear these are preliminary and unofficial numbers. This is why we canvass and go through all the results to make sure everything balances,” Hume said after the commission meeting.

The chief deputy clerk said the test load file was removed and the office did a complete reload of the election numbers to the SOS system, bringing the number of ballots cast into balance.

“If you looked at the results uploaded on election night, you’ll see that 12 races have differences in the vote count (from that night) versus what is there today,” Hume said. “Today is correct.”

While the vote counts changed slightly, none of the outcomes look to change.

After the corrected numbers were uploaded to the secretary of state’s web portal, two local council races are still slated for a recount once the SOS finishes its canvass on Nov. 25.

In the race for village of Los Lunas District 3 council seat, Matthew Chavez has 197 votes to Naithan Gurule’s 193. Incumbent Cruz Munoz has 175 votes.

Those numbers changed slightly from the preliminary numbers originally reported out Wednesday, Nov. 5, from Chavez with 203 and Gurule at 199. Cruz dropped from 184.

The Bosque Farms race drew five candidates for two council seats. Currently leading in the preliminary results is Manuel Zamora with 519 votes, followed by James “Opie” Bruhn with 327 and Dolly Wallace with 322. Stefanie Scanland and CJ Kettle received 310 and 295, respectively.

The number of votes for Zamora didn’t change, but initially Bruhn and Wallace were tied at 326, and Scanland and Kettle had 311 and 296, respectively.

Hume said the new election code stipulates a race undergoes a recount if there are five or fewer votes separating the candidates, rather than the previous rule a less than 1 percent separation.

Preliminary results show University of New Mexico-Valencia Campus Advisory Board write-in candidate Eloisa Tabet received 254 votes. Write-in votes have to be hand tallied and are counted after polls close; preliminary results for that race weren’t available on Nov. 5, when the News-Bulletin went to press with the initial preliminary election results.

Hume told commissioners a representative of the voting machines vendor, Dominion Voting Systems, couldn’t say where the load file came from.

“The file was identified and purged. The machine is a high-speed scanner used for absentee ballots. It’s very different than the machines at polling locations,” she said. “We are working with the vendor and someone will be here for the recounts and any possible post-election audits.”

In 2024, precinct 14 in Valencia County was among those selected statewide by the SOS for a post-election audit check. The races audited in that precinct were the presidential race, the race for U.S. Senator and for the District 1 U.S. Representative seat. The audit results show no difference between the number of votes each candidate received as tallied by machine and hand counted.

The chief deputy clerk noted Dominion has recently been sold to another company. According to an Oct. 9 article on CBSnews.com, St. Louis-based Liberty Vote announced its acquisition of Dominion Voting Systems that day. Liberty was founded by Scott Leiendecker, a former Republican elections director for St. Louis, according to CBS.

The voting machines used by Valencia County and all other New Mexico counties are purchased by the secretary of state and provided to the counties.

Bureau of Elections Director Shelly Trujillo said they were able to correct the problem and the numbers presented to the commissioners at the canvassing meeting are correct.

Commissioner Morris Sparkman asked how they know the numbers are correct and where the voting machine certification process went wrong.

Hume said the tabulators aren’t “smart” and are not connected to the internet. The results from the tabulators are recorded on memory cards, which are uploaded to the SOS system.

“All the tabulators match so we know they are counting correctly. The problem was one of the files from the test is embedded in the computer of the high speed counter,” she said. “It popped up when we did the loads on Election Night. We completely scrapped the whole load, reloaded from scratch and kept track of every load today. We know everything matches.”

Trujillo said when staff started canvassing the results, that’s when they found the discrepancy.

“The ‘mock election’ was perfect during the certification process. We zeroed out the machines and purged the results in preparation for the election,” she said. “Everything said zero. We ran a zero report but it popped up and if we hadn’t gone tabulator by tabulator we wouldn’t have found it. This was part of the canvass process.”

Sparkman said he couldn’t sign the canvass documents, recalling when the clerk’s office missed the canvassing deadline for a 2024 special election for a mill levy for Los Lunas Schools.

“It’s frustrating we have to keep doing this. We have to go back to the community to defend this,” Sparkman said. “Why can’t we just get it right? It makes us look bad ... this has happened twice now. When we have discrepancies it doesn’t bring trust into democracy. I’m not signing this.”

During the 2024 canvass meeting for the LLS mill levy special election, Hume told commissioners while a canvass typically happens six to 10 days after an election, in the case of a special election, SOS doesn’t require the final results be submitted.

At last week’s meeting, Hume said the clerk’s office and bureau of elections is “very frustrated” with the situation.

“Dominion couldn’t give us a solid answer as to where (the load file) came from. It’s very disturbing. We are not going to let this go by the wayside. The big cheese for the region for Dominion will come for the post-election audit check and before we do the recount,” she said. “Going forward, we will not be using that machine. I have no faith in that machine. We do have to use it for the next two processes (the audit and recount) because we have to use the same equipment.”

Valencia County Clerk Mike Milam said the issue wasn’t coming from the county’s side of the process.

“It’s a computer generated issue. The person from Dominion had never heard of such a thing,” Milam said. “We understand your frustration. Right now, we can’t say who this should be blamed on but it’s been corrected to make it right.”

Hume said the certificate of canvass presented to the commissioners is affirming the files sent to the secretary of state are correct.

Commissioner Troy Richardson made a motion to accept the canvass and Sparkman made the second. The motion passed 5-0.