Otero County NM Republicans Refuse to Certify Primary Election

[essentialsaltes]

GOP commission refuses to certify New Mexico primary vote
“The post-election canvassing process is a key component of how we maintain our high levels of election integrity in New Mexico and the Otero County Commission is flaunting that process by appeasing unfounded conspiracy theories and potentially nullifying the votes of every Otero County voter who participated in the primary,” Toulouse Oliver said in a statement.

See also:
Election ‘Vigilante‘ Group Posing as County Workers, Says New Mexico’s State Auditor

Breach of the Capitol: Consequences, Repercussions & Reactions

 

[DaisyDay]

Are they going to hand count the votes?

There were no cited discrepancies, but they don't trust Dominion voting machines because of conspiracy theories. Thank you, Donald and Rudy!

 

[essentialsaltes]

Are they going to hand count the votes?

I think this is what we can look forward to more of, with elected or appointed officials in charge of elections who just gum up the works with a refusal to ratify results. The Party of No has found something else they can stop. Too bad for us, the election denying wing has decided to stop democracy.

 

[essentialsaltes]

NM Supreme Court orders Otero County Commission to certify election results

The New Mexico Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered Otero County commissioners to certify primary election results by the end of this week, raising the stakes of a dispute over election integrity issues that has generated national attention.

Let's see if the Commission takes this to, "Make me." or "You and what army?"

But I guess DaisyDay is right that they want to handcount the votes. Unfortunately, that conflicts with state election law.

While Otero County commissioners have not voted to certify the primary election results, they instead voted last week to recount ballots by hand, remove state-mandated ballot drop boxes that facilitate absentee voting and discontinue the use of Dominion vote-tabulation machines in the general election.

But Otero County Clerk Robin Holmes, a Republican, said she does not have the authority to take such actions.

 

[camille70]

NM Supreme Court orders Otero County
Commission to certify election results

The New Mexico Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered Otero County commissioners to certify primary election results by the end of this week, raising the stakes of a dispute over election integrity issues that has generated national attention.

Let's see if the Commission takes this to, "Make me." or "You and what army?"

But I guess DaisyDay is right that they want to handcount the votes. Unfortunately, that conflicts with state election law.

While Otero County commissioners have not voted to certify the primary election results, they instead voted last week to recount ballots by hand, remove state-mandated ballot drop boxes that facilitate absentee voting and discontinue the use of Dominion vote-tabulation machines in the general election.

But Otero County Clerk Robin Holmes, a Republican, said she does not have the authority to take such actions.

One of the three, Griffin, is supposed to be sentenced this week over his January 6th activities. I wonder if his refusal to certify will impact that at all, since he doesn't seem remorseful or anything.

Couy Griffin: Judge finds January 6 defendant guilty of trespassing on Capitol grounds - CNNPolitics

 

[essentialsaltes]

The commission has added a Friday emergency meeting to take up the certification.
Commission Chairwoman Vickie Marquardt has not responded to CNN's inquiries.

But fellow commissioner Couy Griffin told CNN on Thursday that he did not intend to comply with the state Supreme Court order and would not vote to certify the results.

"I'm not planning to move off my position," he said in a brief telephone interview. "Why have a commission if we just get overridden by the court system?"

New Mexico secretary of state asks state attorney general to investigate county commission refusing to certify election results

 

[Green Sun]

January 6th, 2021 was the indicator that this was the Republican Party's playbook from now on, I'm afraid.

"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism, they will reject democracy."

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I know some democrats aren't a fan of him...but boy I wish the GOP would follow the advice of conservative/libertarian leaning comedian Adam Corolla.

https://twitter.com/RealTimers/status/1528480823120482305

"It's overwhelming...what's going on, I'd like to shake us like an etch-a-sketch and start new, I feel like we've just been scribbling randomly for too long"

 

[Yttrium]

"I'm not planning to move off my position," he said in a brief telephone interview. "Why have a commission if we just get overridden by the court system?"

Violates state law, wonders why courts are out to get him.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Crisis averted.

The Otero County Commission voted 2-1, with one of the central figures in the refusal to certify the results, Commissioner Couy Griffin, voting “no.”

“We honestly don’t have a choice,” Commission Chairwoman Vickie Marquardt said before the vote, citing the potential for fines and removal from office if the panel ignored an order from the state Supreme Court to certify the primary results.

This week, [NM SOS] Oliver also made a criminal referral to the state’s attorney general, urging an investigation of the commission over what she called “multiple unlawful actions” – including the initial refusal to certify the results of the primary and voting to remove ballot drop boxes.

 

[Nithavela]

Silly republicans. FIRST you pack the supreme court, THEN you break the constitution.

 

[wing2000]

Judge Luttig (June 16, 2022)

"The specific question of course before you and before the nation, not before me, is whether that foundational rule of law was supremely violated on January 6, 2021. Now, to the question specifically that you asked, Madam Vice Chair, I believe that had Vice President Pence obeyed the orders from his President and the President of the United States of America during the joint session of the Congress of the United States on January 6, 2021 and declared Donald Trump the next President of the United States, notwithstanding that then President Trump had lost the Electoral College vote as well as the popular vote in the 2020 Presidential election, that declaration of Donald Trump as the next President would have plunged America into what I believe would have been tantamount to a revolution within a constitutional crisis in America, which in my view, and I'm only one man, would have been the first constitutional crisis since the founding of the republic."

Later in the hearing:

"I have written, as you said, Chairman Thompson, that today, almost two years after that fateful day in January 2021, that still Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy. That's not because of what happened on January 6th. It's because, to this very day, the former president, his allies, and supporters pledge that, in the presidential election of 2024, if the former president or his anointed successor as the Republican Party presidential candidate were to lose that election, that they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way that they attempted to overturn the 2020 election, but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020. I don't speak those words lightly.

I would have never spoken those words ever in my life, except that that's what the former president and his allies are telling us."

Here's every word of the third Jan. 6 committee hearing on its investigation

New Mexico is a preview of what lies ahead.

 

[DaisyDay]

Judge Luttig (June 16, 2022)

"The specific question of course before you and before the nation, not before me, is whether that foundational rule of law was supremely violated on January 6, 2021. Now, to the question specifically that you asked, Madam Vice Chair, I believe that had Vice President Pence obeyed the orders from his President and the President of the United States of America during the joint session of the Congress of the United States on January 6, 2021 and declared Donald Trump the next President of the United States, notwithstanding that then President Trump had lost the Electoral College vote as well as the popular vote in the 2020 Presidential election, that declaration of Donald Trump as the next President would have plunged America into what I believe would have been tantamount to a revolution within a constitutional crisis in America, which in my view, and I'm only one man, would have been the first constitutional crisis since the founding of the republic."

Later in the hearing:

"I have written, as you said, Chairman Thompson, that today, almost two years after that fateful day in January 2021, that still Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy. That's not because of what happened on January 6th. It's because, to this very day, the former president, his allies, and supporters pledge that, in the presidential election of 2024, if the former president or his anointed successor as the Republican Party presidential candidate were to lose that election, that they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way that they attempted to overturn the 2020 election, but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020. I don't speak those words lightly.

I would have never spoken those words ever in my life, except that that's what the former president and his allies are telling us."

Here's every word of the third Jan. 6 committee hearing on its investigation

New Mexico is a preview of what lies ahead.

I'm afraid that is true.

 

[rambot]

I know some democrats aren't a fan of him...but boy I wish the GOP would follow the advice of conservative/libertarian leaning comedian Adam Corolla.

https://twitter.com/RealTimers/status/1528480823120482305

"It's overwhelming...what's going on, I'd like to shake us like an etch-a-sketch and start new, I feel like we've just been scribbling randomly for too long"

If the party continues to use a man with significant mental health issues as it's leader, obviously it's all going to seem chaotic. That's how he maintains control.

I'm not the first person to notice this trend in leaders.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Crisis averted.

The Otero County Commission voted 2-1, with one of the central figures in the refusal to certify the results, Commissioner Couy Griffin, voting “no.”

There is now a lawsuit to remove Griffin from office.

Otero County denies request for legal help

Otero County commissioners on Friday rejected a plea by one of their colleagues, Couy Griffin, for taxpayer-funded legal representation as he fights a lawsuit seeking his removal from office.

The complaint seeking his removal from office is pending in state court. It was filed by three residents of Santa Fe and Los Alamos counties.

His defense sparked laughter from members of the audience Friday as he made the case for county legal representation and said it was time to take a stand against “tyrannical Marxists” who want to take away freedom.

“Look this is hard enough without you all laughing,” Griffin said at one point in the meeting.

 

[essentialsaltes]

State officials scramble to respond as election skepticism goes hyper-local

For several hours on a recent Thursday afternoon, a former college professor and his wife unspooled a string of alleged election "vulnerabilities" for officials in a rural New Mexico county to consider: "Digital manipulation" of the voter rolls. Voting machines that were not properly certified. "Ink anomalies" on ballots.

"Conspiracy to violate the election code imputes liability to you," David Clements told the three members of the Otero County Commission, before adding, "Unless you do something about it."

Four days later, they did -- refusing to certify the June 7 primary results and setting off a high-profile confrontation between the all-Republican commission and New Mexico's Democratic Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver before two commissioners relented in the face of a state Supreme Court order.

Clements, a former prosecutor who has said he was fired from his teaching job at the University of New Mexico in 2021 for not complying with Covid-19 mandates, has crisscrossed the country with his claims, promoting his appearances from California to North Carolina to the more than 111,000 people who subscribe to his Telegram channel.

He and his wife, Erin Clements, also are overseeing an election audit in Otero County, authorized by the county commission. Their work is unpaid, according to Commissioner Couy Griffin, who said he brought the couple to the commission's attention following an overture from Erin Clements.

A crowd-funding site that says it was created to support Clements over his firing by the University of the New Mexico shows it has raised more than $304,000 to date.