Santa Fe City Council, mayoral candidates raise concerns about rocky rollout of election website

Yahoo

24-05-2025

First-time Santa Fe City Council candidate David Montoya showed up at the City Clerk's Office at 9 a.m. May 5, the first day he could begin seeking signatures to get on the November ballot.
He asked if he needed a packet of information, he said, and was told all he needed to get started was a nominating petition, posted online.
He was surprised, then, to discover he was not included on the city's election website, created by a vendor through a contract with the City Clerk's Office; nor had he been notified when the portal went live, allowing residents to submit signatures and make donations electronically for candidates to qualify for public financing. He received a lackluster response from the office when he reached out again, he said.
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David Montoya
"Everyone was indifferent about it," said Montoya, a District 1 candidate, adding the situation "raises serious questions for me about how the city interacts with everyday people on a customer service level."
He wasn't alone. It's been a rocky start to the municipal election, with tensions flaring. Several candidates running for mayor and City Council expressed similar frustrations about the rollout of the election website, which didn't go live until more than a week after the target date and initially didn't include all the candidates. Some described what they characterized as dismissive responses from city staff when they raised concerns — however, City Clerk Andréa Salazar said some of her employees have been treated disrespectfully by candidates as well.
"I had a lot of angry candidates threatening lots of things, being very aggressive with me and my staff, which I am not happy with," Salazar said Thursday. "No one has a right to yell at anyone or to threaten people."
'This isn't a fair race'
Mayoral candidate JoAnne Vigil Coppler, a former city councilor, said she learned about the election website on Facebook. When she visited the site, she realized a link for people to sign her petition wasn't live.
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JoAnne Vigil-Coppler
She contacted the City Clerk's Office last week, she said, and Salazar told her she was out of the office and would look into the issue Monday.
Vigil Coppler spoke with Assistant City Clerk Xavier Vigil, who told her the office couldn't fix the problem because it was an issue with the vendor. After more back and forth, Vigil Coppler said she notified the city she would file an injunction if the problem wasn't fixed or the website taken offline.
The problem was then solved.
"If not everybody could get their petitions signed, this isn't a fair race," Vigil Coppler said. "Is that too much to expect? No, it's not."
Part of the issue stemmed from emails the City Clerk's Office sent to candidates asking for their information — not everyone received one. Salazar said that also was a vendor-related problem and was corrected Monday.
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Former City Councilor Ron Trujillo
Former City Councilor Ron Trujillo, who is running for mayor for the second time after an unsuccessful bid in 2018, didn't receive an initial email but heard over the weekend he wasn't listed on the website. He has since been added.
The site shouldn't have been published until all problems were resolved, he said.
"There probably are kinks like that with every system … until you've gotten all the glitches out," Trujillo said. But, he added, "It shouldn't go live. That's the way I've always worked."
Mayoral candidate Oscar Rodriguez said he wasn't listed initially but received an email from the City Clerk's Office on Monday.
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Oscar Rodriguez
"I trust there's no skulduggery," he said, "but still, it does give an advantage to those whose face appeared and who knew this technology was coming."
Rodriguez, a former city finance director who is running a campaign focused on improving basic city services, said the glitch felt emblematic of why he decided to enter the race: "There's just so much stuff that plagues the city with execution."
'They really should read up'
Like some of his rivals, Rodriguez said the website issues created an imbalance in the race.
Salazar pushed back on that assessment, saying candidates were able to use paper forms to collect signatures and donations starting May 5; the electronic option was an added bonus.
"It's a convenience that we're trying to make for people," she said. "We created this to help people, and we can not do it in the future, so no one has access to it. I guess that's the alternative."
City Councilor Michael Garcia, who is running for mayor, said he is familiar with the process because he has run in two past elections but is worried people running for the first time will be at a disadvantage.
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Michael Garcia
Prior city clerks scheduled sit-down meetings with the candidates to answer questions and make sure they had everything they needed, he said, while this year, information was just posted on the city's website.
Salazar said she has been too busy to hold similar candidate sit-downs but is happy to meet with any candidate — and some meetings already have been scheduled.
"Part of the problem is, how can we reach out to people who we don't know are candidates?" she said.
She encourages anyone who wants to run for office to do their own research.
"What I tell candidates is they really should read up on the code, they should look at our website, they should make sure that they understand both the statutory sections that are in New Mexico statute, they should look at our charter, and they should also look at our public campaign financing and election code, and be as familiar with those to understand what the requirements are," Salazar said.
Voter ed effort coming
As of Thursday, most candidates who have publicly said they intend to run for office are listed. The exceptions are mayoral hopeful Tarin Nix and District 3 City Councilor Lee Garcia, who has said he intends to run for a second term.
Lee Garcia did not respond to multiple requests for comment on whether he has submitted paperwork.
Nix is the deputy commissioner of public affairs for the New Mexico State Land Office and has said she will not start seeking signatures until June. Once she is a certified candidate in August, she has said, she intends to take a leave of absence from her state job.
Salazar said the City Clerk's Office is committed to being transparent and communicative, and is beginning to develop plans to educate people about how Santa Fe's ranked-choice voting process works, which may include sending out information with utility bills.
"We want to make sure that everyone has the tools they need to move forward, and we want to make sure the community also understands what's going on in this election cycle," she said.