Building anger in rural New Mexico erupts in election crisis

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Behind the raw public frustration and anger over election security that has played out this week in New Mexico was a hint of something deeper — a growing divide between the state’s Democratic power structure and conservative rural residents who feel their way of life is under attack.

In Otero County, where the crisis over certifying the state’s June 7 primary election began, County Commissioner Vickie Marquardt struck a defiant tone as she relented under pressure from the state’s Democratic attorney general, Democratic secretary of state and a state Supreme Court dominated by Democratic appointees.

One of the main explanations she gave for reversing course had nothing to do with questions over the security of voting machines — the reason the all-Republican, three-member commission had originally refused to certify its election.

“If we get removed from office, nobody is going to be here fighting for the ranchers, and that’s where our fight should be right now,” said Marquardt, the commission chairwoman in a county where former President Donald Trump won nearly 62% of the vote in 2020.

Otero County is similar to the handful of other New Mexico counties where residents have questioned the accuracy of election results and given voice to unfounded conspiracy theories about voting systems that have rippled across the country since former President Donald Trump lost re-election in 2020.

In the state’s vast, rural stretches, frustration over voting and political representation has been building for years. Residents have felt marginalized and overrun by government decisions that have placed limits on livelihoods — curtailing access to water for livestock, shrinking the amount of forest land available for grazing, or halting timber operations and energy developments due to endangered species concerns.

Tensions have mounted as Democrats in New Mexico consolidate control over every statewide office and the Supreme Court. Democrats have dominated the Legislature for generations.

Even as they voted to certify their elections, sometimes reluctantly, commissioners from several New Mexico counties said they were bound by the law to take that step — thanks to legislation passed by Democrats. They urged their residents to take the fight to the statehouse.

Some bemoaned what they felt was an encroachment by the state on the powers of local government. Marquardt, from Otero County, complained of her commission’s meager “rubber stamping” authority under laws enacted by Democrats and an election certification “railroaded” through by larger forces.

Otero County is among more than a dozen self-proclaimed 2nd Amendment “sanctuary” counties in rural New Mexico to approve defiant resolutions against recent state gun control laws. The county also has embraced resistance to President Joe Biden’s goals for conservation of more private land and waterways for natural habitat, arguing it will cordon off already limited private land.

Amid alienation, skepticism about the security of elections has taken flight.

On Friday, Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin was the lone dissenting vote in the election certification,…