A. The secretary of state shall study, examine and certify all voting systems used in elections for public office in New Mexico. The secretary of state shall maintain a current list of certified voting systems and copies of filed testing and evaluation reports accessible by the public on the secretary of state's web site. Only voting systems certified by the secretary of state and acquired pursuant to a competitive bid process in accordance with the provisions of the Procurement Code [13-1-28 to 13-1-199 NMSA 1978] shall be used in any election for public office in New Mexico.

B. As used in Chapter 1, Article 9 NMSA 1978, "voting system" means a combination of mechanical, electromechanical or electronic equipment, including the software and firmware required to program and control the equipment, that is used to cast and count votes, and also including any type of system that is designed to print or to mark ballots at a polling location; equipment that is not an integral part of a voting system but that can be used as an adjunct to it is considered to be a component of the system.

History: 1953 Comp., § 3-9-2, enacted by Laws 1969, ch. 240, § 184; 1976 (S.S.), ch. 5, § 1; 2001, ch. 233, § 1; 2010, ch. 28, § 10; 2011, ch. 137, § 69.

Cross references. — For unlawful opening of voting machines, see 1-20-5 NMSA 1978.

The 2011 amendment, effective July 1, 2011, made stylistic changes.

The 2010 amendment, effective March 3, 2010, in the catchline, added ";voting system defined"; in Subsection A, in the first sentence, after "study, examine and", deleted "approve" and added "certify"; at the beginning of the second sentence, deleted "Any type of"; added the second sentence; at the beginning of the third sentence, added "Only"; and in the third sentence, after "voting systems", deleted "not approved" and added "certified"; after "secretary of state", added "and acquired pursuant to a competitive bid process in accordance with the provisions of the Procurement Code"; and after "Procurement Code shall", deleted "not"; and in Subsection B, after "component of the system", added the remainder of the sentence.

The 2001 amendment, effective June 15, 2001, inserted the Subsection A designation and added Subsection B; in Subsection A, substituted "voting systems" for "voting machines" in two places.

Machines do not change requirement that precincts accommodate voters. — Notwithstanding the fact that voting machines may accommodate more than 600 voters, enactment of Laws 1951, ch. 192 (now repealed) did not supersede or repeal 3-2-1, 1953 Comp., requiring county commissioners to divide precincts and voting districts so that no polling place will be required to accommodate more than 600 voters. 1952 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 52-5489 (opinion rendered under former law).

Am. Jur. 2d, A.L.R. and C.J.S. references. — 26 Am. Jur. 2d Elections §§ 365, 431.

29 C.J.S. Elections §§ 153, 203.