ROSWELL — New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver testified before a congressional committee Sept. 11, where she disputed claims that noncitizens are voting in federal elections, and warned about the dangers of misinformation on the safety of election workers and confidence in the election system.
Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat, was one of six secretaries of state from across the nation called as witnesses during a nearly two-hour hearing of the House Committee on Administration.
Other secretaries of state who Toulouse Oliver appeared with were fellow Democrats Jocelyn Benson of Michigan and Adrian Fontes of Arizona and Republicans Frank LaRose of Ohio, Cord Byrd of Florida and Mac Warner of West Virginia.
U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI-01), chair of the committee, started the hearing by noting that ballots for the Nov. 5 election have already been mailed out in Delaware.
“Each state faces unique challenges in their election administration. By ensuring states are properly equipped to administer their elections, more Americans can have confidence in how their elections are run and in the results,” Steil said.
Like her colleagues, Toulouse Oliver at the hearing called for federal funding for state election infrastructure, but she also pushed back against claims that noncitizens are voting in federal elections.
“Noncitizen voting does not happen in any systemic way in New Mexico or in the nation more broadly,” she said.
Toulouse Oliver referenced a study from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, which found only 23 documented cases of noncitizens having cast a ballot in the United States between 2003 and 2023. The study found that none of those cases were in New Mexico.
She added that her office has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to election fraud, and that anyone found to be engaged in such conduct will be charged and prosecuted.
The hearing comes as former President Donald Trump has made unsubstantiated claims that noncitizens are being registered by Democrats to vote in the 2024 election.
At Trump’s urging, House Republicans have passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act), to require that people provide proof of citizenship when they register to vote and that state election officials remove all noncitizens from their voter rolls.
The SAVE Act has already passed the House but has stalled in the Democratic-led Senate. House Republicans had hoped to attach the SAVE Act to a six-month stop-gap funding bill that would stave off a government shutdown when money for federal agencies is scheduled to dry up on Sept. 30.
Supporters of the bill say the SAVE Act will restore confidence in the nation’s election system. Toulouse Oliver noted at the hearing that it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. Other critics of the proposal say that states already remove noncitizens from their lists of voters.
Under current federal law, it is already illegal for noncitizens to cast a ballot in a federal election and doing so can result in a fine, a prison sentence of up to one year and deportation or the revocation of that individual’s legal status, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
It is not legal in any state for noncitizens to vote in statewide elections, although three states and the District of Columbia do allow for certain noncitizens to vote in some municipal or school board elections.
Misinformation
During her testimony, Toulouse Oliver also spoke about the corrosive effect misinformation is having on public faith in the nation’s election system.
Toulouse Oliver, who before she was elected New Mexico Secretary of State in 2016 managed elections as the Bernalillo County clerk, said in her testimony that until recently, the work of state and local election officials received little attention.
“We used to say if we are in the news, then we are not doing our job,” she said.
But that has changed as the public’s confidence in elections has diminished and people have taken a greater interest in election administration. She admits that scrutiny does provide an opportunity for greater engagement and civic knowledge.
“However, because of what has now been years of false election claims and ideological attempts to discredit our elections and voting systems, much of the heightened awareness of elections is now colored by conspiracies and quite frankly outright lies,” Toulouse Oliver said.
That hostility has been on the rise since 2020 when then-President Donald Trump began making widely debunked claims attributing his unsuccessful reelection campaign to widespread voter fraud.
False information, she said, then results in what she described as “frivolous and burdensome public information requests,” substantial legal costs, increased mistrust and political violence.
“This is a vicious cycle that must be mitigated for the good of our country,” she said.
Election officials have been targets of intimidation in recent years. According to a study from the Brennan Center for Justice, 38% of local election officials surveyed reported that since 2023, they have experienced threats, harassment or abuse in the course of doing their jobs.
Toulouse Oliver, in 2022, disclosed that her office had reported threats made against them. She conceded that skepticism is fueled by what Toulouse Oliver calls “knowledge gaps” between the reality of the election system and what large swaths of the population believe about it.
One example Toulouse Oliver mentioned in a longer written version of her remarks that research from her office and the University of New Mexico conducted, which found that more than 70% of New Mexicans said they believed it is possible to obtain information about how someone voted in an election without their consent.
Toulouse Oliver said her office has worked with several nonpartisan nonprofit organizations to launch Your Vote Counts, New Mexico! The statewide media consists of public service announcements designed to introduce voters to their local election officials and educate them about measures that are in place to ensure the integrity of elections.
“They’re on TV, on radio, online, in English, Spanish and Diné, the Navajo language. All the videos were recorded to expand the reach of this effort across New Mexico’s diverse communities,” she said.
Earlier this year, New Mexico was ranked number one on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for its administration of elections performance index. Toulouse Oliver testified that she credits that distinction with measures taken in New Mexico to ensure elections are fair and secure.
Her office has also established a Rumor vs. Reality page on its website, which seeks to debunk false claims about the election process.
At the Sept. 11 hearing, she credited that distinction with measures taken in New Mexico to ensure that election outcomes are accurate and fair, such as having all elections conducted using paper ballots, vote tabulators and regular maintenance of voter rolls.
Voter ID
Toulouse Oliver was also asked about voter ID. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, New Mexico is one of 14 states that does not require people to provide documentation when they vote at the polls.
The Secretary of State’s website says a person does not need a New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division ID or driver’s license to vote. Those types of identification are required, only if someone registers to vote online or registers online to receive an absentee ballot.
For those who move to New Mexico and do not have a valid New Mexico driver’s license or ID card, the Secretary of State’s website says an individual who registers to vote must show an out-of-state ID or driver’s license, along with either a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, student identification card or other government document which shows that person’s name and current address.
Steil asked Toulouse Oliver if she thought adopting a photo ID law would help restore voter confidence in the election system. She said that she did not.
“I don’t think it’s a silver bullet,” she responded.
Republicans, such as Steil, disagreed.