The following was submitted anonymously by a local poll worker to ensure they remained in that position, which they value as one of their patriotic contributions to their community:
Thank you for your recent initiatives concerning elections, election machines and questions put to the Sierra County Clerk. I have some comments on those recent posts published in The Citizen.
Full disclosure: I am an experienced election poll worker having served as an election worker in Hawaii, Washington state and New Mexico. Prior to retirement, I had a 45 year professional career serving mostly in local or state government departments which gave me familiarity not just with the inner workings of such administrations, but also voting procedures and processes.
Firstly, I reference Ms. Amy Whitehead’s responses to your questions (Sept 16 I believe).
You commend Ms. Amy Whitehead for the quick response. Yes, it is wonderful for a journalist to get responses in a timely fashion from an elected official. I understand. I suspect, however, that most of the content Ms Whitehead supplied you as answers was not her own words, but “cut n paste” from either the County Clerk handbook, or the training materials supplied to county clerks by the Secretary of State who has done and excellent job of establishing a framework for how NM conducts elections. As a result NM consistently is rated highly for election integrity. Let’s keep it that way.
I couldn’t help noticing, however, that the only question which Ms Amy Whitehead did not answer was the one about conflict of interest and her husband being on the ballot. No source for her to cut n paste an answer? Perhaps I am being uncharitable, the Sierra County population is small, and a Whitehead may just be the best person for the job, but YES I am concerned that we can’t hardly turn around in this county without finding a Whitehead drawing a salary or remuneration from our tax dollars. Nepotism and cronyism much?
All the fine aspirations in Ms. Amy Whitehead’s answers aside, was she not the county clerk who allowed a candidate (Rebecca Dow) onto the ballot without proper paperwork as recently as this past primary? Shoddy work on a County Clerk’s part in my opinion resulted in unnecessary “is there or isn’t there a candidate for the district?” 11 th hour write ins, 11 th hour “okay candidate IS on the ballot” rulings and altogether a whole lot of unnecessary drama.
Election workers are frontline recipients of the fallout from this type of drama. Voters let election workers know their opinions even if said workers are not responsible. Because Ms Amy Whitehead (and candidate Rebecca Dow) did not follow procedure, there were inevitably some muddles and tensions on voting day. It’s easy to learn to cut n paste, not so easy to read, mark and inwardly digest then act accordingly. Election integrity begins with the County Clerk knowing AND following procedure at every stage.
Unless I missed it, nowhere does Ms Amy Whitehead tell you that she seems to observers to delegate a major part of the practical aspects of running the election: recruiting election workers, election worker training (mandated by NM statute NMSA 1-2-17(E) and Election Day troubleshooting to someone on her staff called Courtney. I have no problem with delegation in the workplace, but what are this Courtney’s qualifications, training or experience? Has she ever presented herself for scrutiny before the voters to be elected, as a County Clerk is?
During the recent primary, Courtney hired her younger sister and three other teens (too young to vote but not too young to be paid out of state and county election worker coffers it seems ) to serve as extras alongside experienced election workers. Nepotism much? I am all for youth engagement in civics and refreshing the election worker pool, but there used to be clear written codes in workplaces around family hires. Corruption writ small is still corruption in my book.
Or maybe I am wrong. Times have changed and nepotism is now the rule.
Perhaps a pertinent question to ask Ms Amy Whitehead is: what criteria are used to select election poll workers and how are the various positions of presiding judge, election judge and election clerk assigned at each venue? Then, what steps are taken to ensure that election workers have attended the mandatory training and have the necessary competencies to carry out the tasks effectively?
In recent Sierra County elections there have been instances of
- election workers not attending mandatory trainings, yet still being assigned election worker, including “election judge” positions.
- an Election Judge asking people for “green cards” when she should be asking for voter permits – a different beast entirely but then not everyone has been through the rigors of legal immigration. At no stage, after a voter has received their ballot, should an election worker be questioning that voter’s citizenship status as a request for “green card” implies. This can be seen by an observer as voter intimidation.
- An election worker, in 2024. (Yes prior to Ms Amy Whitehead’s term as County Clerk), after handing a voter their ballot, then asked what nationality that voter was. In NM, election workers may NOT ask for proof of identity or citizenship UNLESS it is a same day registration or there is a problem finding their registration in the database by name, birthdate and address. None of these applied in that case since the database had already verified the voter and printed their ballot. Again, this can be seen by an observer as voter intimidation.
What I am saying is that there seems to be a gap, a shadow, between the rhetoric and the actions in the Sierra County Clerk’s office.
There also seem to be certain election poll workers who are playing by a different rule book, and are being allowed to do so. Why?
Oh and while I am poking the bear: Voting machines and their certification are only part of it. Why, when I understand (I could be wrong) that the city of TorC has always provided internet in the polling venues in the past, did Sierra County recently decide to go with a dedicated Starlink satellite connection, and not the city’s, for election connectivity ? A perhaps pertinent question to Ms Amy Whitehead, Sierra County Clerk, would be: who made that decision, and why?
There are hopefully good technical reasons. Starlink’s CEO does have a bit of a record in global election interference. Surely not in our backyard?
Anonymous comments don’t belong in public forums. It should be listed as gossip!
Why everyone post everything in public forums ,even shaming ,Please ! And Gossip is also there also ..The truth shall set you free Jane ..
Great article. T.y. to the poll worker for writing in. All very important questions and concerns. The starlink is very concerning. Whose modem/acct was used?; or did the Clerk buy it for one day (as if).
I think it we need a lot more volunteer observers!
When are you going to realize that all voting machines have to go? Period! Hand-counted paper ballot elections are the only solution. Also voters must have a valid ID to vote. This is common sense. Elections before 2020 were rigged. 2020 was rigged. And recently, I believe the Thomas Massie election was rigged because of the machines. Take two minutes to see how Democrats rightly say voting machines cannot be trusted.
Democrats on the voting machines
https://odysee.com/@ConspiraciesFromCatholicPerpective:2/Democrats-on-the-voting-machines:0?lid=2cb51561419191280229b7f87151195c0a4b7a3b
Anonymous makes it fishy. And if Anonymous saw violations, ethics issues, etc., what did Anonymous do about it at the time?
Its called freedom of Speech!
Wether some believe its gossip.
Anyone can say or put story anywhere,as much is on Facebook ,there’s enough scandals there 😉
I checked out this source, have prior experience with this source, and deem this source credible.
News outlets often grant anonymity to sources because they are insiders giving information their government employer doesn’t want the public to know. It’s often the only way to get that information to the public.
True, it is always better to name the source if you can. I more often refuse to grant anonymity to someone who wants to use me to carry their water–to influence the outcome of a lawsuit or political issue anonymously to their own benefit. This is not that. This is someone concerned with the good of the people.
This trained and experienced election poll worker would lose that position and ability to observe and report to the SOS if they gave the press their name.
I have reported numerous election issues to the SOS and/or asked them for a ruling that I can use in an article. The SOS public information officer (as a member of the press I must go through them to get a ruling or interpretation of the law) has never given me the requested rulings. I have also reported election irregularities as a private individual to the SOS at SOS.ethics@state.nm.us and as a reporter to the SOS’s public information officer with no response or follow-up or discernible results from the SOS.
Obviously, the anonymous poll worker in this article cannot report possible nepotism and lack of training to a county clerk that is promoting or allowing it, leaving only the SOS or THE PRESS as a means to expose and change those practices. Given my experiences with the SOS–ineffective, unresponsive–it is perfectly understandable why this poll worker would turn to the press to get out their message and concerns.
As always, it is up to the reader to ascertain the value of or validity of any article or book, etc. Blanket rejection of anonymous sourcing would include the Washington Post’s Bernstein and Woodward’s exposure of the Watergate scandal, the New York Times’ Pentagon Papers and the recent book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s “Regime Change.”
To be fair, the “Voter Permit” IS a green letter size paper that comes out of the printer along with each voter’s official ballot and is to be returned by the voter in same time frame as they feed their ballot into the tabulator. If a poll worker mistakenly refers to it as a “green card”, I suspect that any immigrant who actually HAS a green card or any US citizen who knows an immigrant with a “green card” knows the difference. Some of us who are US citizens and have never even seen a “green card” would know when we’re holding the official ballot and the GREEN “voter permit” in our hands that the poll worker is asking for the green piece of paper that was given to us along with our ballot, NOT for a U.S. Permanent Resident Card.
With respect to the criticisms that much of the info being shared by the County Clerk is actually ON the website of the NM SoS, HERE is what our County Clerk shared most recently: “Good Monday morning ALL! I am pushing out as much information as I can- but I would also like to inform you that there is A LOT of information on the NM SOS website http://www.sos.nm.gov For answers regarding the upcoming general election- https://www.sos.nm.gov/good-questions/ ” I suspect there are a number of voters in this county and throughout the state who may not know to visit the SoS website to seek explanations for the Bond Issues, etc., and who may be much more likely to read quick posts by their respective County Clerks.
Where I used to call home, we had many were named Geissinger, Rosenberger or Longacre (and many with different names were related). Most of them were involved in farming. I guess someone COULD say “oh those geissingers run a milk cartel and why do those longacres raise all the turkeys? They must all be crooks.” But that’s stupid. Families are often raised with certain knowledge and values — whether caring for community through public service or by raising dairy cows and providing dairy products. So the name Whitehead is common here… And it’s common in the public service sector. I’m glad it’s not the name tied to a drunken meth head family.
As for green cards, no matter how many decades someone with a green card lives here, unless they choose to become a citizen they do not vote. Some municipalities in the nation have exceptions for localized things like school board elections, but as a rule green card holders don’t vote since they have chosen not to become citizens or haven’t yet done so. Val’s right about a green paper obviously being what the worker was talking about,
And as for anonymity? Really??? You gave enough information about where you lived and worked in the past to make that kind of silly just as I have here in saying “back home” and listing the three most common names (and most all of them were related in some which way)