Even though 140 absentee ballots were mailed in October without a return address, Torrance County Clerk Linda Jaramillo said the missing labels did not impact validity, and counting them was no issue. They were inspected with enough time to be returned before Nov. 5.
The voting centers in Torrance County closed at 7 p.m., and all ballots were submitted by 9:15 p.m. Jaramillo expressed that it was a smooth process for everyone involved in the operation.
She also mentioned that it had never happened to her in 25 years.
“Thank God. The ballots didn’t have the return address, and we alerted the Post Office,” Jaramillo said.
The back of the envelope reads Torr. as in Torrence County, meaning all offices have a distinction, thus making it easier to track and trigger the Post Offices’ system.
The process worked as intended, as it happened in an isolated time period.
“We just started marking them off; we were just missing three. It was a major lesson learned for everyone. I like to be very transparent,” Jaramillo said.
She also thanked the Post Office for its hard work, clarifying that this could not have happened without them. Jaramillo also shared that she will make sure to send “little baskets of something” for Christmas to the Post Office as a token of appreciation.
It is important to note that there is a new method of counting ballots. While it used to take one ballot individually, the new procedure takes 40 ballots at a time. This year’s absentee by mail involved 875 sent out ballots which included 16 overseas voters. Nine voters signed an Affidavit of Non-Receipt of their ballot and voted at the polls. 828 ballots were returned, which included the overseas ballots for a total of 38 that were not returned, “which is an excellent number,” Jaramillo said.
Jaramillo adds that 1,115 people voted in person at the Estancia Admin Building, 2,731 people voted early in person at the Moriarty Civic Center and 2,507 people voted on Election Day, with 766 of Election Day votes being at the Civic Center.
Jaramillo is in her last year as Torrance County Clerk as she prepares for a Commissioner position, starting in January. She was first elected county clerk in 1997 and retired in 2020, before she was appointed again in 2023 after her successor stopped showing up for work.