By Amanda Martinez
Special to the SUN

The decision by the Española Clerk’s Office to turn off security cameras in the voting room at City Hall during early voting for the recent city election caused confusion for city officials and community members.

Española resident Cynthia Lentini found out that the cameras has been turned off, and that six others in city hall were broken, after she received a response to her Feb. 17 Inspection of Public Records Act request.

Lentini requested footage beginning the first day of early voting on Feb. 3, through Feb. 17 for interior and exterior city hall surveillance footage leading to, and inside of, council chambers where voting was taking place.

City Records Custodian Brenda Marquez responded nine days later and stated the city would need additional time to fulfill Lentini’s request because the footage totaled more than 300 hours each day.

Marquez then referred to the turned off council chamber cameras as a “technical difficulty.”

“We are also experiencing technical difficulties with our cameras as follows: Council chambers cameras (sic) are disabled for voting purposes,” she wrote. “There are 6 cameras down, and in need of maintenance/replacement. One of the hallways is down, 3 exteriors, and 2 in utilities. They worked for about two weeks then went down again from our last maintenance. We tried troubleshooting again but realized that they need to be replaced or repaired. Keep in mind that our retention schedule for camera footage is 28 days at the most.”

Lentini emailed City Manager and Police Chief Mizel Garcia after receiving this response, and he responded that he was aware the cameras had been turned off during early voting.

“I was aware the cameras in the council chambers lobby and council chambers were disabled for the duration of the early voting process,” Garcia wrote. “I was advised it was necessary to provide and ensure voting secrecy for constituents who would be voting.”

Garcia said in a March 2 telephone call that the election is run by the clerk’s office, and he has made no decisions regarding how it has been conducted.

“Those decisions, I had no input,” he said.

City Clerk Carla Martinez did not respond to an email asking why they were turned off, if they received any input from the New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office (SOS) and whether this was done in the last municipal election.

Secretary of State Legislative and Executive Affairs Director of Communications, Lindsey Bachman, wrote in an email that they “have not received any direct information or a complaint as to security cameras being turned off at a polling location in Española.”

The state’s election code does not require or regulate security cameras at polling locations, she wrote.

“However, any camera utilized could violate the secrecy of someone’s ballot,” Bachman wrote. “It is against the law for someone to disclose any information regarding the manner in which a voter marked a paper ballot in an election without the voter’s consent.”

Bachman wrote in a follow-up email that state statute does require Class A counties to have video surveillance in areas where uncounted ballots are held on election night only.

“It does not apply to polling locations where mailed ballots are returned, or provisional ballots are cast,” she wrote.

There are five Class A counties in the state, according to county data available on the New Mexico Legislature website. These are Bernalillo, Doña Ana, Santa Fe, Sandoval, San Juan and Santa Fe.

“All secured containers in the state, including the drop boxes, have video surveillance already installed and maintained,” Bachman wrote. “Those features are not controlled by the municipal clerk.”

LEA

Last year, the city council had the opportunity to opt in to the states Local Election Act, but a vote on the ordinance never occurred.

According to the SOS website, the LEA repealed the Municipal and School Board Election Codes and established a state-wide election schedule.

The ordinance would have reset the city’s election schedule to match that of Rio Arriba County, and municipal officer questions would appear on county election ballots. The city clerk would no longer be responsible for conducting municipal elections. Its passage also would have reset the terms of some elected officials, including the mayor.

Elected officials with terms scheduled to end in 2026 and 2028 would see them extended until 2027 and 2029.

The city council did not vote to opt in to the LEA because of council meeting scheduling issues in June 2025.

The council would have had to pass the LEA ordinance no later than June 30, and it was scheduled to come before council at the June 24, 2025, meeting.

That meeting was recessed due to the public disclosure of a police report filed against Mayor John Ramon Vigil alleging his sexually assaulted a city employee. Several months later, after an investigation, New Mexico State Police declined to file charges against Vigil.

The city council attempted to hold a special meeting on June 30, 2025, to conduct the recessed meeting, but failed to properly advertise it and it did not occur.