July 31, 2024

In this episode of the Perception podcast, we’re going to focus on a program that was announced on July 31st, with the main goal of providing more confidence in the integrity and security of New Mexico’s election system. The national presidential election and the state’s general election occur this November 5th, 2024. Joining me today on the Perception podcast is Carmen J. Lopez, the president of CL strategies, a company that supports communities to help them build and engage representative and accessible democracy.

Carmen is here to share some information about a program called Observe New Mexico Elections.

https://observenmelections.org

Full Transcript

Tom Garrity, The Garrity Group Welcome to the Perception Podcast, a production of The Garrity Group Public Relations where we help small businesses to be heard and large organizations to be understood… I’m Tom Garrity. In this episode of the Perception Podcast… we are going to focus on a program that was announced on July 31st with the main goal of providing more confidence in the integrity and security of New Mexico’s election system. The national presidential election and the state’s general election occur this November 5th, 2024.

Joining me today on the Perception Podcast is Carmen J. Lopez, the President of CL Strategies, a company that supports communities to build and engage, representative and accessible democracy. She previously served as the Senior Director of Democracy at the State Innovation Exchange, the Democracy Policy Officer at the Thornburg Foundation, the Deputy Cabinet Secretary of the New Mexico Higher Education Department as well as the Data and Policy Director at America Votes-NM. Today, Carmen is here to share some information about Observe New Mexico Elections, an initiative that was announced On July 31st. Welcome Carmen!

Carmen J. Lopez, CL Strategies Thank you, Tom!

Tom Garrity, The Garrity Group You bet! So, there had been a few surveys have been announced that indicate the need for more confidence in the integrity and security of national and statewide election systems.  Will you please share some of those insights?

Carmen J. Lopez, CL Strategies Sure, I’d be happy to. So a public opinion strategies poll was conducted last month, in June of 2024 of a random representative sample of 300 New Mexican adults and the survey showed that a majority of New Mexicans trust the election process. 67% were very or somewhat confident the New Mexico can administer a fair election where everyone has the opportunity to vote and the votes are counted accurately. 72% believed election officials and their city or county are dedicated to making sure votes are counted accurately. 67% believe election officials in the state are dedicated to making sure votes are counted accurately. The survey also indicates that nonpartisan election observation, which I know we’ll talk about a little bit more later, is expected to build further trust and confidence in election processes. So 75% believe that they would trust election systems more if they were monitored by objective nonpartisan observers. And given a choice between nonpartisan observers or partisan observers, 62% trust nonpartisan observers to make sure that elections are conducted fairly and votes are counted accurately. The last points’ consistent with national findings. So the survey of the performance of American elections two years ago was a national survey that was administered to over 10,000 registered voters around the country and they also found that 61% of American voters would have more confidence in the integrity and security of the state’s election system if they knew that nonpartisan poll watchers and observers had observed the process.

Tom Garrity, The Garrity Group  So a lot of data. I mean there is just a lot of really good information that addresses perceptions and of course we’re all about perceptions and so this information helped to shape the direction of Observe New Mexico Elections. By means of disclosure, The Garrity Group is working with and The Carter Center on this specific initiative. Carmen, what is Observe New Mexico Elections and why does it exist?

Carmen J. Lopez, CL Strategies So observe New Mexico Elections is a nonpartisan election observation effort that’s funded by the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Center in Atlanta. Our mission at Observe New Mexico Elections in New Mexico is to increase the transparency and trust in New Mexico’s elections by training and deploying nonpartisan election observers throughout the state. So observers will report on how election laws and procedures are followed and they’ll represent all voters without interfering in the election process. And findings from their observations, we’ll compile them and asses the overall quality of elections in New Mexico. We created this effort in order to educate the public about voting in elections and to increase transparency and trust in the process because research has long indicated internationally that the presence of independent election observers during critical stages of an election can improve both election administration and also bolster public trust in electoral outcomes.

Tom Garrity, The Garrity Group: Bolstering public trust, increasing confidence in elections and educating the general public–why was New Mexico selected for this initiative?

Carmen J. Lopez, CL Strategies I think New Mexico was selected for two reasons. One is that New Mexico’s 2022 election was ranked most well run in the country by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election data and science labs election performance index. So that index measures states’ performance on metrics ranging from voter wait times and turn out to voter registration rates and election audits. The index really reflects how states administer elections and how election administration has changed in intervening elections. Second, New Mexico allows for nonpartisan election monitoring in addition to partisan election monitoring which is not the case in all states. So for those two reasons New Mexico is a great place to fully understand election law and then be able to track where the variation and where the similarities are across counties as they run the elections.

 Tom Garrity, The Garrity Group: Who is involved with Observe New Mexico Elections?  Certainly it’s not a one person operation. There is a staff and an advisory board for starters

 Carmen J. Lopez, CL Strategies We want everybody to be involved with Observe New Mexico Elections so I’ll just start by saying that we are inviting the public to become a part of this incredibly important civic engagement opportunity in this election. But with that said there are in fact people that are working both in a volunteer capacity and in a staff capacity with Observe New Mexico Elections. The effort is guided by a five-member cross partisan advisory board that includes former New Mexico governor Garrey Carruthers, former Justice Barbara J. Vigil , Ryan Cangiolosi law professor and attorney, Maureen Sanders, and Navaho National Civil rights director Leonard Gorman. This is a mix of prominent, trusted people from their communities and then the initiative itself is co led by Sharon Berman and myself. And we both have extensive experience advocating for democracy, better governance and better voting and elections in New Mexico. I’m also the president of CL Strategies, which is a company that supports communities across the country to build and engage representative and accessible democracy and I do that from my home in Santa Fe.

 Tom Garrity, The Garrity Group: That’s fantastic and it’s great to have the opportunity to work with both yourself and Sharon. Sharon and I know each other through New Mexico First and the work that she’s done through that organization on good governance. So there definitely is a solid team that is helping to make Observe New Mexico Elections to be successful.  One of your goals to get everybody involved includes key elements of nonpartisan poll watchers who will be observing the election process.  Tell us a little bit more about these poll watchers and what they’re going to be doing.

 Carmen J. Lopez, CL Strategies Okay, so there are very few opportunities in this country to observe elections in a nonpartisan way where you are present on behalf of all voters and the voting system as a whole rather than a particular party or candidate. So this opportunity is really unusual and it’s wonderful that New Mexico gets to be the first state-wide build out of this program. It’s a wonderful way for people to give back to their communities and show care and protection for the voting system and more broadly for democracy. Volunteer observers will observe early voting starting October 8th and election day voting on November 5th. Observers across the state will walk in to polling places in every county with a clipboard, a pen, and a set of questions they will answer about the election process over the course of the day. We’ll then centrally collect their responses and we’ll analyze, summarize and share the statewide findings. This process will both educate a lot of people about the election process, it will provide individuals with a nonpartisan way to participate and will likely increase the public’s sense of transparency and trust in the elections.   

 Tom Garrity, The Garrity Group  What kind of training is needed to be an election observer?

 Carmen J. Lopez, CL Strategies Observe New Mexico Elections will provide an in-person training to every single election observer about the state law and guidelines as well as how to approach the responsibility associated with being a nonpartisan election observer. We’ll also provide training and on-going guidance to each observer throughout the process. Observers will also participate in a required Secretary of State training that also orients them into the experience of being an observer and making sure that observers don’t intervene or become problematic in the voting process in any way. They are simply there to observe, to note what happened and to bring results back to us so that we can pull all of that data together and share it with the rest of the state after the election.

 Tom Garrity, The Garrity Group  I know you’ve been talking a bit about it, the website, ObserveNMElections.org states in big text, “Building trust through transparency”. What does that mean?

 Carmen J. Lopez, CL Strategies ObserveNMElections.org is our website and we encourage people to come and visit and look at both the purpose, our goals, and to get involved and I’ll say that so your question is what does it mean to build trust through transparency. I’ve been working to increase the transparency of government and political processes for many years in the state and nationally. By increasing the transparency of the movement of money in politics, bringing the process of scrutinizing the ethical conduct of government officials into the public eye and there are many state and national organizations that do similar work such as The Foundation for Open Government in New Mexico, and the Sunlight Foundation nationally. And I think as you look across the country and you see that people’s trust in government and trust in elections become shakier, I think it’s important to shine a brighter light on the difficult and complex process of election administration and show the public what goes in to making an election happen. And I think that New Mexico is a particularly great place to do that because the administration of elections by county clerks and by the secretary of state is strong and our laws are well constructed. So I think this is a perfect place to do this and because I have such deep confidence in the elections in New Mexico, I believe that increasing the transparency of the election process will in fact increase people’s trust in elections.

 Tom Garrity, The Garrity Group: So Carmen, how will Observe New Mexico Elections measure the success of this initiative?

 Carmen J. Lopez, CL Strategies Ultimately we will measure the success of this initiative by successfully sending hundreds of New Mexican observers out to polling places in every county in the state and then sharing their findings with the public. And we’re looking to increase the transparency and thus, the trust in our elections.

 Tom Garrity, The Garrity Group  How can people get involved with Observe New Mexico Elections?

 Carmen J. Lopez, CL Strategies Check out our website at https://observenmelections.org/ and specifically the Get Involved page. I invite you, I invite all of my neighbors, all of my family, all of our community members here in New Mexico to think about becoming an observer in the early elections, early voting and also on election day. We’re also hiring county coordinators who will be contractors working on fixed fee contracts through the end of the year to organize this work. 

 Tom Garrity, The Garrity Group  Okay, so here some off the wall questions to help our listeners learn a little bit more about the leaders who are shaping perceptions in our state. How do you recharge, are there favorite podcasts, a recent book or movie you’d recommend?

 Carmen J. Lopez, CL Strategies I recharge by swimming and playing tennis, and doing anything outside in the New Mexico sunshine.

 Tom Garrity, The Garrity Group Excellent! And what is the best advice you’ve ever been given, regardless of whether you asked for it?

 Carmen J. Lopez, CL Strategies When I was in high school, and desperately wanted to get out of New Mexico and trying to decide whether to go across the world to Australia, or across town to Santa Fe prep, my aunt Marsha Lopez Bolton said I should do the thing that seemed the hardest and would be the most likely to change the trajectory of my life—and it was very good advice.

 Tom Garrity, The Garrity Group Wow! That’s good stuff. I like that. And so I would assume then but as far as if there’s a quote, person or a defining moment that helped make a difference in your professional life that last answer definitely covers that but is there something else that you’d like to expand upon?

 Carmen J. Lopez, CL Strategies I thought something that was relevant to this project is a quote that I read, I don’t know who to attribute it to is: Democracy is not something you believe in or a place you hang your hat. But it’s something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it then democracy crumbles.

 Tom Garrity, The Garrity Group  That’s a great transition to the question of  how can people learn more about the organization Observe new Mexico Elections?

 Carmen J. Lopez, CL Strategies You can check out our website at observenmelections.org/ or you can find me and I would be happy to answer your questions.

 Tom Garrity, The Garrity Group Thank you Carmen J. Lopez, the President of CL Strategies and co-leader of Observe New Mexico Elections for joining us today.

 Thank you for listening to the Perception Podcast, I am Tom Garrity with The Garrity Group Public Relations where we help small businesses to be heard and large organizations to be understood.  For more information about our team and our success stories, visit garritypr.com or reach out to me via email tom@garritypr.com.

 Thank you for listening to the Perception Podcast.