SANTA FE – Five New Mexico electors cast their votes Monday for Joe Biden to formalize the Democratic candidate’s victory in the state’s presidential vote.
Biden won the statewide popular vote by a margin of nearly 11 percentage points over President Donald Trump.
With the Electoral College meeting across the country to formally elect Biden as president on Monday, the president-elect’s team says it hopes Republicans will accept Trump’s defeat and focus their attention on fighting the coronavirus pandemic and staving off economic tumult.
In New Mexico, Democratic Party-appointed members of the Electoral College wore face masks as a precaution against the coronavirus as they met inside a Statehouse committee room to cast their votes in favor of Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
The meeting was accessible to the public and media by video webcast only. Electors of diverse backgrounds greeted the public briefly in English, Spanish and a Native American language.
The last time New Mexico sided with a Republican presidential candidate was the 2004 reelection of George W. Bush.
There were no immediate signs or protest or celebration outside the Capitol building, which has been the site of weekly pro-Trump rallies since the Nov. 7 election.
At a state district court in Albuquerque, defeated Republican congressional candidate and former police detective Michelle Garcia Holmes on Monday filed in detailed plan for inspecting hundreds of thousands of election ballots in the state’s most populous county.
With support of the Republican Party, Garcia Holmes filed a court petition in early December to ensure Bernalillo County ballots are accessible for inspection by volunteers at a storage warehouse.
She said in court filings that the request was made “with an eye toward prospective improvements in election policy and retrospective, outside verification of certain results.”
State GOP Chairman Steve Pearce has said the effort is linked to a widespread examination of vote tabulation equipment.
U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland defeated Garcia Holmes by 16 percentage points, or more than 52,000 votes, to win reelection to the Albuquerque-based 1st Congressional District.
Republicans flipped control of the 2nd Congressional District in southern New Mexico with the victory of Yvette Herrell over first-term Rep. Xochitl Torres Small.
