U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján is urging Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver to extend the deadline for turning in absentee ballots in the face of previous mail delays.
In a statement issued by his office Wednesday, Luján, the fourth-ranking Democrat in the U.S. House, said his office has even heard reports of “some ballots that are missing altogether.” That claim is unsubstantiated, according to Toulouse Oliver’s office.
Alex Curtas, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s Office, said extending the deadline would require a change in law. Only the Legislature has the power to change the election code, and there is no session pending before Tuesday’s primary. But it is still possible for a last-minute court challenge to make an emergency request to extend the deadline.
“If [Toulouse Oliver] had the authority, she’d definitely be considering it at this point,” Curtas said of pushing back the deadline. “So it is worth considering as a policy going forward, definitely. A lot of other states do it.”
He added that he has “no knowledge or indication that there were … missing ballots of some kind.”
A campaign staffer for Luján’s U.S. Senate run later clarified that the “missing ballots” claim refers to ballots that have not yet been received by voters.
The request to push back the deadline comes as many say they are still waiting to receive their absentee ballots with only three business days before the primary election.
The Luján U.S. Senate campaign “has heard directly from at least 20 people who have not received absentee ballots that they requested,” the campaign wrote in a follow-up email.
Meanwhile, at least 33 people at The Montecito, a senior living facility in Santa Fe, were registered to vote a month ago, requested an absentee ballot and have not yet received one, said Margaret Detwiler, a 75-year-old resident there who said she has been active in trying to help other residents through the frustrating process.
Detwiler said she has waited nearly two months since sending in her absentee ballot request March 31 and still has not received her ballot. She and others at Montecito also have faced problems with the online voter registration system mistakenly saying they’re not registered to vote, including Detwiler herself, who has been registered to vote in Santa Fe for 12 years.
The problem with the voter registration list even resulted in one resident at Montecito being turned away from an in-person early voting location and having to come back the next day, Detwiler said. Retirement communities are among the most at-risk populations for developing serious COVID-19 cases.
“I don’t know what to do,” Detwiler said. “People have tried calling the county clerk’s office. If you can leave a message, you don’t get a call back. Most of the time the mailboxes are full. And I know they’re frantic; I certainly understand that. I wish somebody’d look under a few tables at the post office.”
