I really want to be done with the primary. It was unexciting and seriously no one I supported prevailed except for in the Bernalillo County sheriff's race. But, as a national news correspondent noted this week, the false and self-serving mistrust sowed over our elections in 2020 is now a standalone kinetic force.

This must stop.

Election integrity is vital. Seeking to overturn an election because your candidate didn't happen to win is not election integrity; it's thuggish authoritarianism. Challenging primary results over a "gut feeling" after the fact is not election integrity. It's either a) sheer contrariness and laziness, as one could have tried to reform election processes before the election; or b) embarrassing naïveté showing that one will listen to any snake oil salesman trumpeting the latest conspiracy theory gobbledygook about "statistical manipulation" in our voting machines.

Here's my simple question to anyone who wants to challenge the 2022 primary results after the fact: did you attend and participate in the public testing of the voting process held in every county before early voting began? Because this was your opportunity to see the process in action. And if you wanted to raise a stink about the voting machines, this was the time.

If you couldn't be bothered to attend the public test, talk to the hand. You aren't serious. And Torrance County? Just because Otero County does something does not make it a good idea. Did you think rendering your vote null after the fact was truly a good idea? Why do you not trust your Republican county commissioners and Republican county clerk, for whom you presumably voted in the first place?

Let me remind everyone that our problem in New Mexico is not our voting machines. A better question for county clerks is the voter roll purge process. While we want maximum participation in our elections, we also need accurate voter rolls.

Voter registration can never total 100%. We have to consider the under 18 population, others ineligible to vote because of citizenship or criminal status, and those who choose not to vote because of personal or religious convictions.

So, as I wrote previously, a 92% registration rate for eligible voters in Grant County seems implausible at best and should set off red flags for state and local officials, as well as concerned citizens. The statewide voter registration rate is 82.5%, against a national rate of 72.1%.

Interestingly, both Otero and Torrance County are outliers in the state for voter registration. Otero is low at 70%, which may be due to non-citizen residents in that southern county. Torrance County is higher, with 86% of the eligible population registered to vote. That's quite high and could be a place for inquisitive voters to start asking questions.

The apparent desired result of the "jettison Dominion" movement is hand counting of all ballots. As I have written before, this would not eliminate the voter fraud most common in New Mexico. Our problem is mishandling of absentee ballots – i.e., fake ones.

Poll workers hand counting absentee ballots will not know whether they are legitimate or not if they have not witnessed their arrival and processing of every step. One election year, some 1,500 absentee ballots arrived in Grant County – the day before the election. For a county of less than 30,000 people, that's one big coincidence.

How does one challenge that? That's not a machine vs. hand count issue. That's an issue of systemic eyebrow-raising events.

If you see something say something, as the Homeland Security folks tell us.

If you hear some other folks are up in arms because some guy told them some stuff after the primary, maybe you should stand down.

In October, the counties will all be holding public tests of the election equipment. I encourage you to participate, rather than complain after the fact. Staying involved is the best way to let our election officials know we care and are paying attention. The stakes are high, and we shouldn't let our democracy fall victim to post-game armchair quarterbacking.

Merritt Hamilton Allen is a PR executive and former Navy officer. She appears regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican, she lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run two head of dog, and two of cat. She can be reached at news.ind.merritt@gmail.com.