How can the Bernalillo County Clerk better serve you?

Please send your suggestions to my issues management system. You can also post your ideas in response to social media posts where I am requesting your ideas (please see links to posts below):

• Substack
• X (formerly Twitter)
• Linked In
• Facebook

List of Ideas

I will keep an updated list of ideas posted here. Ideas and relevant information will be captured in my issues management system for future reference. I think the best place for these discussions is on social media.

NOTE: Just because people's ideas are listed here DOES NOT MEAN that I necessarily agree with them. However, I promise that all ideas and suggestions will be considered and evaluated for further action. As noted, in some cases, the suggestions are not within the scope of the County Clerk and may require legislative action. In that case, should we decide to pursue an idea or suggestion, we will seek to influence decision makers as appropriate.

• Notify property owners when liens have been placed on their property. Intercept potential title theft. NOTE: There is a notification process already available for this. Please Subscribe to Fraud Guard Alerts.
• Ensure NO DUPLICATE absentee ballots are generated or mailed.
• External computer screen during voter check in to allow poll challengers to see who is checking in while not displaying sensitive data that the poll workers see during check in.
• Require voter ID to vote. Note: this requires changes to State Law.
• Require signature verification of absentee ballots. Note: this requires changes to State Law.
• Hand count all paper ballots. Note: this requires changes to State Law.
• Ensure only U.S. citizens are registered to vote. Federal law and the NM constitution require U.S. citizenship to vote. The voter registration instructions and procedures are less clear about this requirement than they could be. County Clerks are required to vet new applications for citizenship before adding them to the voter roles.
• Clean up the voter roles BEFORE any absentee ballots are sent. We need to ensure there are no registered voters on the roles that are not qualified to vote including all non-citizens, all deceased and all who have moved.
• Consider not counting absentee ballots until after the election so invalid absentee ballots cast do not stop a valid in-person vote. Note: this requires changes to State Law.
• Consider hand counting all ballots in randomly selected tabulators and compare to the count in the tabulator. Note: this may require changes to State Law.

Why am I doing this?

My profession is about helping people. My experience with business information systems is all about implementing better ideas. These new ideas are mostly driven by customers who use the systems. I take their ideas and figure out how to implement them. In the process I make suggestions for improvement as well.

How will these ideas be implemented?

The implementation details are usually not understood up front. We start with general concepts and work out the details as we go. At this point I am looking for any and all ideas. The possibilities are boundless. Consider this a wish list.

Later we will evaluate the ideas for feasibility and prioritize them for implementation. This often entails a benefit/cost analysis to ensure that we are working on the most important and beneficial ideas first. Due to limited resources, some ideas may never be implemented but we will at least consider them and catalogue them for future reference.

Next we will start investigating the implementation details and come up with rough planning estimates. Although plans are rarely followed as written, if you fail to plan you plan to fail. The question is, when will you fail. Too often in information systems development the failure is at the end of the project. This is very wasteful. Ideally, you want to identify issues (potential failures) as early in the project as possible. This allows time to adjust and change plans in the most cost-effective manner.

Ideally the process improvements and automation are implemented in small increments with a focus on usable functionality at the end of each increment. This ties in well with early identification of issues and quick adjustments ultimately leading to a successful project or, in some cases, a project that is terminated before completion if the circumstances dictate. Failure should occur early in order to save time and money if the project is not going to be a success. Also, a project might be successful even if not completed as planned. Success might come early before all planned features are implemented if the features implemented so far are of sufficient value that there is no need to complete the rest.

What is the significance of the picture on this page?

Developing information systems and automating business processes is not like constructing buildings. You can not specify all of the details up front. Instead you start with a general picture of the path you will be traveling and some environmental factors to be aware of. You then identify requirements and plan accordingly with the information that is currently available to you. As you travel down the path you become more aware of the details and make adjustments to your requirements and your plan to reflect the latest information available to you.