By KKOB News Radio, Terry Travis, May 17, 2026
TRANSCRIPT:
Terry Travis:
“Expanded early voting is kicking off this morning for the June primary, so you’ve got more places you can vote around the metro area starting today in this historic primary election. Joining us to talk about it is Carmen Lopez, Co-leader of Observe New Mexico Elections. Carmen, welcome this morning, good to talk with you.”
Carmen Lopez:
“Good morning, Terry.”
Terry Travis:
“So this is really your busy time of year. First, tell our listeners about your organization.”
Carmen Lopez:
“Observe New Mexico Election is training observers around New Mexico to serve as impartial election observers for the June 2nd primary election and as you just noted it has begun so there are expanded early voting site opportunities all over the state starting today and our mission is to increase the transparency and trust in New Mexico’s elections by training and deploying nonpartisan election observers throughout the state so we’ll report on how election laws and procedures are followed and we represent all voters without interfering in the electoral process and then we’ll pull all of that together compile observers findings to assess the overall quality of elections and share all of that information publicly.”
Terry Travis:
“So the volunteers really have to go through some training; they’re going to have to buff up on what the election laws are, I mean, a lot of people, if you ask them, they probably wouldn’t know.”
Carmen Lopez:
“They sure do, so we prepare people with what the election experience the election observation experience will be for them, and we walk through what the state law looks like and the particular process that people observe, and our folks say that they feel prepared to watch for what they’re supposed to be watching for in the polling places.”
Terry Travis:
“So, how do you decide where volunteers go? How does that happen?”
Carmen Lopez:
“So we have people go to the one that’s closest to their house, so we don’t choose hotspots, we don’t choose quiet places, we don’t choose particularly high-volume places. We just want people to observe in their local community and the polling place that they know with the folks that they know.”
Terry Travis:
“Where are volunteers going to be for the lead-up to this primary?”
Carmen Lopez:
“So we will have folks in every county in the state in at least one polling location and then in the general election in the fall which is on November 3rd we will have folks at every single early voting site in the state and then we will have folks at between 50 and 75 percent of Election Day locations but for the primary we’ll just have folks at one or two sites in each county.”
Terry Travis:
“That’s a lot of polling places to cover. I’m assuming you have quite the army of volunteers?”
Carmen Lopez:
“We do. Folks come back every year and then we also invite new folks to join us and there are you know we’re expecting between 2 and 300 volunteers again this year it’s a really wonderful opportunity for people to give back to their community to fulfill their civic obligations and to learn about elections and to understand how they work to learn about all of the work that goes into putting elections on from the point of view of the you know the clerks and the poll workers and people learn a lot and they come away feeling really good about what they about what they learned and about what they did and about what they contributed to and so we do have folks come back every year.”
Terry Travis:
“So, you’re expecting a few more voters this time around, or at least hoping, because we’ve got some changes in our primary?”
Carmen Lopez:
“Yeah, this is so exciting! So, New Mexico, in addition to allowing people to automatically register to vote through the Department of Motor Vehicles and other agencies, has expanded who can vote in the primary election for the first time. So previously in independent voters or declined to state voters who are not affiliated with either party we’re not able to participate in the primary this will be the first primary in New Mexico where all of those folks from all over the state will be able to weigh in they will either be able to choose a democratic ballot or republican ballot and can make their choices and engage in the primary, which in New Mexico is very important because you know in states where in states or counties that are predominantly one county if you are not affiliated with the parties you don’t get to make a meaningful choice in the general election. So the primary election is really the election of contest, and it matters that people participate in this primary, and now we have a significant part of the population who’s able to do that. So yes, I hope that we will see a lot more people out in the polling places starting today, voting and participating, and gearing up for the general election in November.”
Terry Travis:
“So are you guys ready? Ready for the expansion? Ready for the primary and the general?”
Carmen Lopez:
“We are ready we have we have already had folks out the last couple weeks observing and we will have folks out in the next two weeks so we are very excited to go and I hope that all of your listeners see observers in in their polling places and will reach out to us if they’re interested in volunteering with us and they can go to observenmelections.org and apply to be an observer if they want that observe.”
Terry Travis:
“I know that election transparency is really important to your organization, and it’s pretty much what you’re there for. Talk a little bit about what it is that needs to be observed, will be observed, and how this is going to help with transparency.”
Carmen Lopez:
“Sure. So every election is made up of several processes, and it begins with the training of poll workers, so the poll workers know state law and know what the process is that they’re supposed to follow with voters and related to ballots and counting the ballots at the end of the day. So the poll super training is very important and so we observed that and we hope that we see all of the critical pieces of state legislation covered in those trainings and then the certification of election machines which has become controversial in recent years not in New Mexico specifically but nationally so watching that process is really important and then the processing of absentee ballots to make sure that state law is followed related to the processing of those ballots they don’t actually count the ballots that they get them ready to be counted later and then the early voting and then Election Day voting and then the last process that we observe is the certification of election results that the county level which nobody has ever paid much attention to until there were issues in the in the previous election so we watch all of those and make sure that they’re available to the public in the way that you know that the law says they are in New Mexico runs top notch elections So what we see here is that people are doing you know what they need to be doing for the most part.”
Terry Travis:
“Carmen, we really appreciate you joining us this morning, and is there anything else that folks need to know?”
Carmen Lopez:
“Most importantly, go out and vote! Do a little research, figure out who the candidates are that you’re excited about, and say hi to our observers. If you’re interested, please reach out to us, and we would love to have you be part of this volunteer effort this year.”
Terry Travis:
“If you want to find out more, observenmelections.org is the place to go. Carmen Lopez is the Co-leader of Observe New Mexico elections. Carmen, thank you for what you do. We appreciate it.”
Carmen Lopez:
“Thank you for what you do, Terry. I appreciate it.”
Terry Travis:
“Thanks so much.”
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