Amid concerns of federal election interference in the upcoming midterms, U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), along with county and state Democratic elections officials, offered assurances Friday about their efforts to protect New Mexico voters.
At a roundtable event at the Santa Fe Community College, Heinrich and New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver reviewed examples of what they characterized as threats of federal interference, including President Donald Trump’s push to “nationalize” elections; federal Republican legislation that would require voter ID in upcoming elections; and lawsuits against New Mexico and other states for voter rolls.
“I think they are working very hard to discourage turnout in the 2026 elections,” Heinrich said of Republicans at the federal level. “They have seen their poll numbers fall off a cliff in recent months, and they’re looking for every single place where they can get their thumb on the scale. And in New Mexico, we’re not going to have it.”
Heinrich said the state Legislature’s recent passage of Senate Bill 264 serves as a first line of defense against federal interference, as it bars troops from being deployed to polling places and creates a fourth-degree felony for interference with voting.
“Making it a felony to post federal agents at polling locations in an effort to intimidate people, that’s the kind of legislation we can use to protect our polls,” he said.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s Communication Director Michael Coleman said Friday the office has not yet fully reviewed the bill and the governor therefore has not made a decision about whether she will sign it before the March 11 deadline
Oriana Sandoval, the CEO for the Albuquerque-based nonprofit Center for Civic Policy, also sat on the panel Friday, and said her organization is concerned about federal threats to end mail voting. Doing so, she said, would have an outsized impact on older and more rural voters across the state.
“We need to maintain and keep elections and access to the ballot box as easy as possible for all of us, considering the challenges we have here in New Mexico,” Sandoval said.
Democratic county clerks for Doña Ana and Guadalupe counties noted that potential federal cuts for funding to upgrade their machines and enhance cyber security could hurt efforts from foreign actors or actually compromise election security.
“My county is smaller with only 4,200 voters, and we won’t be able to manage an election without the assistance of the state funding alongside the use of federal assistance,” said Guadalupe County Clerk Robert “Bubba” Serrano III.
House Republicans proposed eliminating election funding from the federal budget last year, but it was maintained in the senate version.
Doña Ana County Clerk Amanda López Askin also pushed back against debunked federal claims that undocumented immigrants are illegally voting in U.S. elections, saying that laws requiring voter ID attempt to create “a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist.”
“The narrative has to stop,” she said.
López Askin is running in the Democratic primary election to replace Toulouse Oliver, who is termed-out of the position. She faces Sonya Smith, a former veteran’s department secretary, and Santa Fe County Clerk Katharine Clark in the June 2 primary.
Additionally, Toulouse Oliver said she believes the state is in a position to defeat a pending court challenge by the U.S. Department of Justice, which is suing New Mexico for data beyond public voter rolls; including social security numbers, driver’s license numbers and full dates of birth, which Toulouse Oliver said is a violation of privacy. Federal judges in Oregon And Michigan have rejected similar lawsuits from the DOJ against secretaries of state there.
“We’re fighting potential federal interference that may come our way,” Toulouse Oliver said. “States run elections, the federal government doesn’t, and so it’s really important for folks to know that we’re going to keep pushing back.”
