SANTA FE—Secretary of State Brad Winter today outlined initiatives and projects intended to improve and modernize New Mexico’s election and campaign oversight over the coming year—one of his main goals upon entering office. The mission of the Office of the Secretary of State is to serve the public by assuring clean, accurate elections and campaign reporting through education, transparency, and communication.
As part of that mission, the priorities include:
1. Assuring the 2016 elections are run efficiently and accurately, and that every vote counts by modernizing our office and election technology.
The office is working closely with county clerks to assure that our election timeline is executed effectively to assure the election process, from candidate filing to election canvassing is done accurately, transparently, and efficiently. This includes improvements to the state’s election management systems and increased trainings for county clerks, who utilize the system in their daily work. Technological improvements also include real-time posting of candidates filing for office to the Secretary’s website:www.sos.state.nm.us.
2. Enhancing the Education, Ethics, and Compliance Unit to assure campaign reports are clear and accurate, and to provide all citizens the information they need to understand the election and reporting processes.
The ethics unit will add positions to the office so that every person or entity who files campaign finance reports will have a direct contact within the office to assist with the process. They will also perform regular reviews of filed reports, beyond the statutory minimum, and work with the filing individuals to ensure compliance with reporting laws. The educational focus began with a new lobbyist guide and includes training sessions for lobbyists, which are aimed at preventing avoidable errors, increasing efficiency, and improving reporting transparency. The Office plans similar guides and training sessions for other topics, including campaign finance reporting and voter education, in addition to continuing to revise outdated administrative rules.
3. Updating and improving the campaign finance reporting system.
In addition to the enhanced ethics unit, the office is working diligently on the campaign finance reporting system, known as CFIS, along with the vendor to make improvements and enhancements to the system geared as ease of use and transparency. The office is also looking into a new system that will use modern technology to provide the public with a tool to track political spending.
4. Revising administrative rules and providing guidelines.
The office will continue to work on creating a campaign finance administrative rule, along with educational materials, as well as several other rules and guidelines. The effect is to clarify the law, make sure everyone is using the same playbook, and update outdated administrative rules to work with our modernized election technology.
5. Continuing to implement the unanimously passed 2015 legislation revising the Election Code.
This includes joining a multi-state consortium, to compare our voter rolls with those of other states to assure their accuracy. Other already implemented items from the Senate Bill include online voter registration, which began on January 1, 2016, a year before it was required, and processes under the Uniform Military and Overseas Voter Act to assure our troops, their families, and other citizens can cast their ballots without delay. As of today, over 600 online voter registrations have been processed.
“New Mexicans from Shiprock to Carlsbad deserve elections that are accessible, accurate and accountable,” said Secretary of State Brad Winter. “That’s why this office is working diligently to modernize elections and voter registration and to make sure our ethics guidelines are clear, so that every citizen of our great state can have faith in a government that’s efficient, responsive and transparent.”
“Our state constitution couldn’t be clearer,” said Winter. “All power is vested in the people, and is derived from them. We have to live up to that guiding principle. By making it easy for citizens to get engaged and keep track of their government, we do right by the trust they place in us. That’s our mission, and that’s what we’re working to do every single day.”