Clerk seeks smart ballot drop boxes and added elections staff ahead of 2027 gubernatorial contest

The Sandoval County clerk told the commission the clerk’s office plans to seek capital funding for three secure “smart” ballot drop boxes ahead of the 2027 gubernatorial general election and requested three additional elections positions and continued funding for election-security overtime.

The clerk described the boxes as single-ballot drop devices that capture an image of the person depositing a ballot, accept only one ballot at a time and report a barcode to a live dashboard. The clerk estimated each unit at roughly $15,000 and said installation and electrical work could add roughly $6,000 per unit in upfront site work; the office is vetting security requirements with county IT before procurement. “If we are successful and they meet our security requirements, we'd be the first county in the state of New Mexico to have that smart, secure technology with drop boxes,” the clerk said.

Clerk staff also described a sizable records-redaction effort funded with temporary staff last year: the temporary redaction team processed some 287,268 documents across a multiyear backlog. The clerk’s presentation noted that some election-related security costs (including law-enforcement overtime) were added to the bureau’s salary lines in the prior fiscal year, and that the county funded $252,000 last year for law-enforcement overtime under the clerk’s bureau when the Secretary of State’s reimbursement rules did not cover those costs.

Commissioners asked about long-term maintenance costs (the clerk estimated roughly $4,000 per year per device) and about how the smart drop boxes would integrate with the state’s monitoring and the county’s public dashboard. IT staff and the clerk said they will continue technical and security review, and the clerk stood for follow-up questions at preliminary-budget review.