By Frost McGahey, Investigative Journalist

When the Grant County's Clerk's office was asked to give the number of Independents* registered to vote, it was discovered that they are now lumped in with Others for a total of 4,092. Independents until recently were separated out. Others include the Green Party and other small parties that usually totaling 77 to 130 voters. Both the Democrat and Republican voter count has remained stable.

The total number of registered voters as of January 2024 is 20,254. Since the adult population of Grant County is 20,839, that signifies a registration rate of 97%. According to Pew Research the national average is 66%. Democrats are 10,092, Republicans 5,692, and Libertarians are at 185.

In 2016, there were 13,197 people registered to vote in Grant County for a percentage of 62% of eligible adults. Checking back with the New Mexico Secretary of State Voter Registration link** to confirm the number of Independents, a strange thing happened. On pages 20 & 21, the document shows 21,657 registered voters. The adult population was 21,286 at the time. This means the county had 371 more voters than adults.
(Population figures are from the U. S. Census.)

Since 2020, the number of voter registrations has been abnormally high. In that year registrations skyrocketed to 20,659 or a 97% rate of adults. This is compared to a historical average for New Mexico of 61.2%.

In that election Grant County had a total of 14,435 votes cast, up from 2016's number of 12,811. While1,624 more votes were counted in 2020 than 2016, this is at the same time the population of Grant County declined by 1488.

New Mexico Audit Force's report Election Fraud in New Mexico ***written in 2020 claimed that Maggie Toulouse Oliver allowed RocktheVote.org to directly add Independent voter registrations without going through the Secretary of State's portal.

The New Mexico State GOP Chair, Steve Pearce, had convinced President Trump to invest money and people in New Mexico because Pearce believed if Trump received 400,000 votes, he'd win New Mexico. Trump garnered 401,894, but Biden won with 501,614. In 2016 Hillary received 385,234. Statewide the number of votes had increased by 138,911. The registration rate of voter-age adults had gone from 62% to 88%.

*Independents are officially counted in the DTS category (DTS: Declined to State),
**2016 Voter Registration Data | Maggie Toulouse Oliver - New Mexico Secretary of State (nm.gov)
***Microsoft Word - NM Voter Fraud (dow9ovycsk6w7.cloudfront.net)