Bulletproofing county clerk office won’t start until after contentious election

The Sierra County Clerk’s office will get bulletproof doors and windows, but not in time for the next election.

County commissioners recently accepted a $10,000 grant from the Institute for Responsive Government for election security. The idea for using it to buy and install bulletproof doors and windows on the county clerk’s office on Date Street came from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

 County clerks and their staff from six southern New Mexico counties recently attended an election-security seminar in Silver City by Homeland Security’s contractor, the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center. E-ISAC, created to monitor threats to the electric grid in 1999, recently has been charged with “the evolving threat landscape during the 2024 U.S. election cycle,” says its website. 

But County Clerk Shelly Trujillo said she doesn’t expect to have bulletproof doors or windows installed until after the contentious Nov. 5 election. The county has until May 31, 2025 to spend the grant.

Trujillo told the commissioners on Sept. 17 that she and her staff were unnerved at what they learned at the E-ISAC seminar about the potential for violent attacks during elections and the counting of votes at county clerk offices. Later, in a telephone interview, she said she, like most small-town residents, had never feared election violence before, but today “anything can happen.” Some county clerk offices already have bulletproof windows and doors, Trujillo said, so she wants the same safety measures for the local office.

The Institute for Responsive Government is a “left-leaning nonprofit that advocates for `pro-voter policies’” according to Politico. In 2023, the institute gave New Mexico, Michigan and Minnesota its highest marks for implementing policies like automatic voter registration, re-enfranchisement of felons and expanding early voting. 

A Sept. 3 letter from the institute’s executor director to Sierra County Commission Chair Travis Day did not mention bulletproofing, but said the funds must be used for “key human, physical, and technological assets that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has identified as necessary to conduct elections.”  

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Tom Sharpe
Tom Sharpe

Tom Sharpe has been a print journalist for most of his life. He grew up in East Texas, graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and began coming to New Mexico to work as a forest firefighter out of Questa in 1971. He has worked full-time for the Santa Fe New Mexican, the Santa Fe bureau of the Albuquerque Journal and the Santa Fe Reporter, has freelanced extensively for the Denver Post, Engineering News-Record and Agence France-Presse, and was a press aide for New Mexico Gov. Toney Anaya (1983-86).

Sharpe and his wife Stacy Brown, an artist (paintings and drawings available at Snakestone Studios in Truth or Consequences) and master knitter (knitted toys available at Dust), have six children from previous marriages. They began coming to Truth or Consequences for long weekends away from Santa Fe more than 20 years ago, and after retiring from their jobs and selling their Santa Fe home in 2023, moved to the Truth or Consequences Hot Springs District.

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One comment

  1. Pretty sure SC will certify for Trump based on the local electorate. And also pretty sure the democrats here are not violent insurrectionists. SC should give the money to another district.

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