New Mexico electors support Biden, as GOP sues to invalidate
By MORGAN LEEDecember 15, 2020 GMT
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) Democratic electors in New Mexico cast their votes for Joe Biden on Monday as the Democratic president-elect cleared the 270-electoral-vote mark to formalize his presidential victory, amid new local protests and objections by Republicans to the voting process and outcome.
Biden won the statewide popular vote in New Mexico by a margin of nearly 11 percentage points over President Donald Trump. Democratic Party-appointed electors cast five Electoral College votes in favor of Biden on Monday.
That didn’t stop a group identified as Republican Party-appointed electors from gathering in a hallway of the state Capitol to sign papers indicating their support for Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, in cooperation with two people who recorded video with their phones. State Republican Party spokesman Mike Curtis said the people were exercising free speech.
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Leading legislators in New Mexico say the next regular legislative session in early 2021 is likely to take place in a hybrid of in person and online.
Democratic Senate majority leader Peter Wirth of Santa Fe said Monday that a huge piece of the next session likely will be conducted online through video conferencing as a precaution against pandemic dangers. He noted that many local governments are conducting public business entirely online.
The comments came during an online-only meeting of top-ranked lawmakers and legal counsel to the Legislature. The state s lead budget writing committee last week abandoned in-person meetings. It was unclear what prompted that decision.
Outgoing President Donald Trump s campaign filed a federal lawsuit Monday against the New Mexico Secretary of State s Office, alleging the use of drop boxes to collect absentee ballots in the general election violated state law.
The filing â which came as members of the Electoral College in New Mexico and nationwide met to cast votes formalizing Democrat Joe Biden s presidential election victory â asks the court to delay action by electors or vacate their certification until the case is resolved.
Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver implemented the drop boxes as an option for voters who chose to cast ballots by mail amid the surging COVID-19 pandemic. The presidential election drew a record number of voters who requested mail ballots.
Gage Skidmore
President Donald Trump speaking at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland Flickrcc
After losing New Mexico by nearly 100,000 votes and over 11 percentage points, and the same day the state voted to cast its electoral votes for Democratic nominee Joe Biden, the Donald Trump campaign filed a lawsuit that seeks to invalidate thousands of votes and asked a federal judge to overturn the state’s election results.
The Secretary of State’s office said they had not yet been served with the lawsuit as of Monday afternoon, which was 41 days after the election, but a spokesman for Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, Alex Curtas said, “We look forward to its swift dismissal.”
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