By now many of you are aware of the problems with absentee ballot applications being sent to Grant County residents who do not exist. AES, the company that contracts with the Secretary of State to provide a number of services for New Mexico elections, said that it was an imaging error that caused the glitch that we experienced. Really?

Many of us, with justification, have expressed serious concerns about voting by Mail and the potential for fraud. On the radio show I have done over a dozen stories in the past few weeks documenting the various ways that voting by mail is not secure. I have related at least two stories where individuals, both in the Democrat party, have manipulated results or manipulated the return or counting of ballots to favor their candidates. There are at least half a dozen stories of ballots being lost or misplaced by the United States Postal Service. And the most disturbing of these stories was a former Bernie Sanders campaign official who documented how he and his consulting group use a number of techniques, including ballot harvesting, to manipulate the outcome of elections.

Locally, I have also told stories about people who have been purged from the voting rolls because they had moved or were deceased, receiving applications for absentee ballots. In addition, I have had several people tell me that their voter registration or party affiliation has been altered in some way. It's interesting that the alteration was from either independent or Republican to Democrat. Maybe it happens the other way but as of yet, no one has told me that it has.

While the spokesperson for AES and our County clerk seek to assure us that the integrity of the absentee ballot or vote by mail system is not negatively affected by this, I have to disagree. In our household alone we received more ballots then people who are registered to vote at that address. Or who have lived at that address. All but one of those absentee ballot applications had my last name but made up first names. A couple of them were similar to my relatives but neither of them were registered at my address, although one may have been for a short time but he not only changed his registration address but moved a few years ago and asked that he be removed from the voter rolls.

I have seen social media posts, and I understand they're not always reliable, but from people who say they received more ballots than people who live at their address. That to me strongly suggests that there is more of a problem then just an "imaging problem." if it was truly just an imaging problem then we should have received a number of ballots that is equal to the number of people registered at our address. If there are other people registered at our address on the County voter rolls, they are registered incorrectly, and I question whether they are actually residents of Grant Count or exist at all.

I would not trust the accuracy or integrity of a vote by mail system anymore than I trust the cigar vendor on the beach in Puerto Penasco trying to sell me genuine Cuban cigars at $4 for a box of 3. If we are to ensure that people's votes are counted they must vote in person if at all possible. It has become so easy to do so that there truly are very few legitimate reasons for not doing so. And remember, we must turn out in huge numbers in order to have a chance of winning this election.