KRWG Public Media is proud to bring you Election 2026 coverage with candidate interviews ahead of the June 2nd primary.

That's Tuesday.

We'll hear from Democratic candidates for secretary of state via Zoom.

In separate interviews addressing the same questions.

The candidates will have up to two minutes to answer each question and should not mention their opponents by name.

We may have specific follow-up questions for individual candidates.

Joining us are Amanda Lopez Askin and Katherine Clark.

We begin with Miss Lopez Askin.

Thank you for being with us.

Hello, thank you for having me KC, great to see you.

Let me begin by asking you to talk about your experience and how it uniquely prepares you for the role of Secretary of State.

Sure.

So I currently serve as a Dona Ana County Clerk.

I am starting my eighth year as county clerk and have administered 12 elections.

I run elections in the second most populous county beside behind Bernalillo County, with frankly likely the most contentious elections.

I have my first election was the 2018 Xochitl Torres Small Yvette Herrell challenge, which was nationally watched and I walked in five days later, the election began.

And so that was definitely trial by fire, so to speak.

2019, I administered the first ranked choice voting for the city of Las Cruces and 2020, as you know, was a pretty volatile and active year in elections.

And I administered two elections during a pandemic, and that would be the primary in the general election.

So those specific experience are very obviously targeted towards elections and really speak to my breadth of experience and why I'm running for Secretary of State.

Alright.

And what are the challenges faced by the Secretary of State regarding federal challenges to state control of elections, and how do you plan to address it?

Well, I think we're seeing what I call it in real time.

Part of the damage that is being done that has been done, connected to elections, is a narrative that something is amiss with amiss with elections.

There's something inherently broken or fraudulent.

And so I've been combating that misinformation.

And mal information.

And I say mal information specifically because mal is very, specific to the idea of purposely misleading people.

And so we do not need the federal overreach to run elections.

We have the right and should be able every single state to run our elections.

We do a great job and I've said this for years.

It's a, it's a solution looking for a problem when there just is not one.

So am I concerned?

Absolutely.

I do know that many of the decisions and executive orders that have been, put forth by, our president have been unconstitutional and the courts, although they have disappointed me lately, frankly, I believe that the constitutionality of those orders is, definitely something that we should continue to remind folks that it is unconstitutional.

But beyond that, we should put every, force that we can to protect our elections in New Mexico and protect these states rights.

And that would include litigation, that would include a bipartisan connection, not just in New Mexico, but also nationally to combat that misinformation and, utilize, you know, the will of the public as often as we can as well.

We have stood firm in New Mexico, and we have stood strong in New Mexico.

and I think, like most elected officials, we're waiting to see, what is next?

Right.

You mentioned mal information and how that can affect people's trust in elections.

What methods do you plan to employ to restore and or further trust in New Mexico's elections?

Well, one of the things that when I first started as clerk is I had to do my due diligence and research and understand elections.

I was new, and, and the what I found was absolutely an encouraging and was one of the reasons I chose to run in 2020 after being appointed in 2018.

We do elections well in New Mexico.

We have so many gold standards as and best practices, which is one of the reasons we've been historically ranked in the top ten of election administration by MIT, who frankly, isn't, as is an apolitical organization and don't have any, information or, you know, basically, other than the facts of what we are doing.

So we have managed to balance security and access and the reality is, is that we will continue to have to actively fight in this and mal information.

And, you know, our website, we do a myths versus facts.

The Secretary of State's office does that currently it is very important to do as much community education as we can.

We don't have funding for that.

So one of the things that we will have to do is to make sure we shore up all the funding for the Secretary of State's office and work with legislators to ideally have an education task force connected to voting, connect specifically with the potential, you know, legislative change and embedding more civics into, or into, curriculums and start earlier.

You know, there's all of the ways that we do it, but we also, you know, I have frankly had to sit at at commission meetings and push back actively and say, actually, we do have paper ballots in New Mexico.

We do havehand marked paper ballots in New Mexico.

And we should always have those.

Those are the gold standard.

And we can create one specific race or an entire election based on those.

We have all of the checks and balances in place to protect New Mexico elections and verify their, veracity and authenticity and, security.

All right.

The secretary of state oversees campaign finance reporting and lobbyist registrations.

How do you plan to guarantee transparency regarding that information?

Well, I think part of the challenge right now for lobbyists and, and the campaign finances we have a real challenge in the inputting the the specific program that is utilized by the Secretary of State's office is outdated, clunky, and the largest complaints that I've received from anybody utilizing the Secretary of State's that side of the office the business side is what I call it, is frustrated.

And so we have to make sure that the tools that we have in place currently are working and through no fault of the Secretary of State's office, because it is the system that is, needs to be updated and also the funding that we need to update it.

But that's in the works.

And so the next Secretary of State will be in charge of the implementation of the RFP that's gone out.

And so the vendor who is chosen will will be able to create that from the ground up.

And that in itself will be, you know, I think so helpful for those folks utilizing it and those folks like yourself who want information, it should be easy, seamless.

We should be able to find out who's giving to what and how much and the dates without much of a barrier, which we currently have, you know, as far as campaign finance laws, etc., I'm open to all ideas and legislation.

I know there has been some legislation push forward, about that and that transparency.

Who's going to say they're against transparency?

Nobody is.

It doesn't matter where you come from in terms of the aisle or party.

I think we're all for more transparency.

How that plays out.

We have to make sure it's realistic and implement it well, as well as connect with those utilizing the systems and those with the issues that they have to kind of guide us and lead the way.

And then I have to make a decision about about those things.

I'm very careful about making these huge overreaching promises because I don't have all the information.

I'm, I'm on the outside looking in to the Secretary of State's office.

And although I have a great, partner and mentor and our current Secretary of State, I also want to know what are the ins and outs of the weeds and then want to make an informed decision based on that.

All right.

Thank you.

And what other aspect of the role of Secretary of State or your campaign do you think are important for voters to know?

Well, I think there's a couple of things specifically from, southern New Mexico.

It has been 51 years since a Democrat has run for statewide office in New Mexico and won and I'm really trying to reach the reach all corners of New Mexico to basically, you know, really ring that that bell that says leadership can also happen in other spaces besides Albuquerque and Santa Fe corridor.

And so there's that.

Now, do I want you to vote for me because I'm from the South?

No, I want you to vote for me because I am, by any measure, the most qualified and experienced candidate to be Secretary of State.

I have fought election deniers.

I have fought the false narrative, since 2018, since literally the day that I began as Dona Ana County Clerk, I have done things that are very administrative and boring to some people, but I have shored up my office.

It took me three years to make sure were fully staffed, and was able to add six full time positions.

I advocated for over two legislative sessions to get $3 million for a brand new warehouse built that was built in less than a year, which, if you know, capital outlay is next to impossible to do.

But that takes diligence and follow through and continual work.

I've been front and center at all the legislative, you know, hearings connected to elections, increasing pay for election officials, more safeguards for election officials and as well as the Voting Rights Act, several years ago, which was huge and embedded in that was a Native American Voting Rights Act.

So all of the things that you should expect from a Secretary of State, from the administrative end of having to work out an office and a budget and those things, I have those skills, and I have flourished at that, as well as the front facing, which would be, you know, having these conversations with you, combating misinformation, giving accurate information, advocating, advocating for great legislation and budgetary.

So I, I really believe I'm the full circle leader that is ready to take on the role as secretary of state.

And I'm not just saying it.

I have proven it.

And so when we talk about get ready for I will do this when I I've already done it last time.

Thank you very much.

Amanda Lopez Askin Democratic candidate for the primary for Secretary of State.

We appreciate having you.

Thank you.

And joining us next for Election 2026 coverage on KRWG Public Media is Katherine Clark.

Thank you for participating in this coverage with KRWG.

We appreciate having you.

Thank you for having me.

And a reminder, you'll be answering the same questions as the other candidate.

You'll have up to two minutes to answer each question, and you should not mention your opponent by name.

Okay.

All right.

We'll start with the first question of course.

and that is to have you talk a little bit about your experience and how it uniquely prepares you for the office of Secretary of State.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you for the question.

I've been in public service for about 25 years and used to do about 15 years of executive management experience.

And while I was doing executive management experience, I got really interested in elections and the electoral space.

So I have, more than about 15 years of working in elections, as a, campaign manager and data person.

And so I have a lot of familiarity with not only running the elections internally as the county clerk in my second term, but also I have a lot of experience, with the stakeholders as part of the electoral space.

and that's one of the reasons why I've worked very hard and running on modernizing elections.

So we've won 15 national awards in Santa Fe County.

We do a lot of the first at bat, essentially the first to innovate, which other counties across the country are looking at.

So we're very proud of our experience, in terms of, you know, getting the work across the finish line and having the, the accolades to show how, you know, how much I'm sort of ready to take action and make sure things get across the finish line.

What are the challenges faced by the Secretary of State regarding federal challenges to state control of elections?

And how do you plan to address it?

Great.

So I think we have seen a lot of executive overreach by this administration.

I'm actually, past 93% of the platform and policy positions as the vice chair of the executive committee, for elections subcommittee for the National Association of Counties, with this anticipation that once, Trump got elected, he would be very much interested in attempting to relitigate the 2020 election.

So I actually got ahead of it.

We've actually passed policy to be in opposition of this administration, and we've been lobbying very hard against the SAVE Act in congress.

I was actually in D.C.

about four weeks ago, lobbying as part of the election subcommittee, fighting back against the SAVE act and making sure was killed on the Senate floor.

I've also been very active in the, lawsuit space.

So we've signed on as local election officials.

I'm the only person in this race who has done that, making sure that we have signed on to fight against the executive overreach in terms of his executive orders and what we're also seeing is that the DOJ is trying to weaponize, getting our election data.

So if I'm elected Secretary of State, I do believe that local and state election officials are the ones who control the data.

That's why I passed a resolution saying as much, at the National Association of Counties.

You know, if people want to know what I believe, just look at the resolutions I passed.

The policy Ive passed and built a coalition around fighting for it.

But essentially, I do believe they're trying to take our data and weaponize that.

And so we will be fighting that as well as the Secretary of State.

But I also think the thing it's things like natural disasters, right.

That's why I wrote a bill with Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, who's a state senator, talking about how we manage emergency preparedness.

We're the only county in the state who actually puts our tabulators on chargers to make sure that if the power goes out, we will be able to continue to run an election for which we've won multiple national awards.

So I really think I'm front and center of knowing exactly what we need to do to protect our elections.

And I've done everything in my power to make sure that we are protecting New Mexico, but also elections, nationwide.

All right.

Thank you.

And what methods would you plan to employ to restore and or further trust in New Mexico's elections?

Awesome.

So we do something, in New Mexico, in Santa Fe County again, which we've been nationally recognized with, which is where we work on pre-bunking elections.

So we actually have a media strategy where we talk about elections and set expectations.

So even if we know it's going to be a particularly operationally challenging election, we make sure we talk to our media.

We do a lot of outreach and education.

We actually have a lot of advisory boards.

And one of the reasons why we have advisory boards is we talk to populations that may not necessarily watch television or get media in the same way, and they help us get our message out.

We also do something called pre-bunking among our young people.

So we actually go with a tabulator into all of our high schools and we run a mock election where people can practice.

We know from data that when students practice 3 to 4 times, they'll become lifelong voters.

But part of becoming a lifelong voter is being a well informed voter and having trust in the elections.

So what we do is we actually pre-bunk what we feel will be the myths and disinformation that young people will see on social media and spaces that we are not necessarily in, whether that's gaming platforms or Snapchat.

And we actually pre-bunk that information with tangible experiences to make sure that we have a population that is not only well informed but essentially inoculated from, mistrust in elections.

And the other thing is that I think you have to run elections that are on time.

People have an expectation now that elections be done on election night.

And I will say that 100% of my elections have been done on election night.

No one has had to wait past 11:30 to get results out of Santa Fe County.

And my goal as the Secretary of State is to make sure that all of New Mexico is done by 11:00 on election night.

The Secretary of State oversees campaign finance, reporting and lobbyist registrations.

How do you plan to guarantee transparency regarding that information?

So I actually think the Secretary of State could ramp up enforcement.

We've seen several, organizations that have declined to report their donations.

And I think we need to have a much more a stronger enforcement space.

Make sure we're responding.

I also think we need to use an algorithm where we're looking at the donations to see if the money flow makes sense.

I would actually take all of the CFIUS data from 2020, 2004 onward and the current CFIUS because we know that the current Secretary of State is actually under RFP to be developing a new program, dump that all into one program, and then make it more visualization and more, user friendly.

What we've done in Santa Fe County is actually have a dashboard where you can see voters checking in real time so that people can actually know how many voters voted early Election Day and absentee.

And then all of that data lines up to what we're reporting on election night.

So I think if we provide tools for people to be able to visualize what's going on, who's giving to whom, we will have a lot more transparency.

I think that it's very important that we see some of the, entities that are currently not having to report to be able to report, for instance, in school board races, school board races don't necessarily or the entities involved in school board races do not necessarily have to report.

And we need to reform to make sure that, you know, we don't necessarily care where you're getting your money, but you need to tell us if you're going to be influencing the round House or influencing elections.

All right.

And what other aspects of the role of Secretary of State or your campaign do you think are important for voters to know?

I think that I'm running on results.

So essentially we have done, you know, first in the country, many innovative things to make sure that elections are, a well run as possible in Santa Fe County.

But also we have the highest turnout among large counties.

We've innovated a lot.

We are the first.

We are the county that supported Mora and San Miguel County during the large fires.

The proof is in the pudding.

We've really been nationally recognized for all the things we've done.

But I also think there's a lot more we could do in terms of access to the ballot.

You know, we are we are very concerned about the election, Trump administration and mis and disinformation.

So you have to be willing to report on time, run high trust elections, make sure you don't mistakes.

Because what we're seeing right now is Trump is actually trying to point to large mistakes and counties, right, inadvertently sending people the wrong ballots and trying to take over with the DOJ.

So not only do you have to, pretend, protect and defend elections, but also you have to be willing to expand access to the ballot.

There are still people in New Mexico who have a very hard time registering to vote, because they don't have access to the website.

And so, for instance, the election, the website in New Mexico is actually non responsive design, which means it doesn't display well on your cell phone.

We know that 80% of rural people use their cell phone.

So essentially the the website is really not that usable for everyone who is in a rural area.

And those are the kinds of things I'd like to change.

I'd like to see more, public financing.

So it's not just large money in large donors.

Who decides who gets to be your elected official?

I would like to make sure there's more transparency, but I think the real key is access to the ballot.

If there is more access to the ballot, it means that everyone will vote.

And I want to make sure that if you are eligible, you are able to vote, because I'm not going to be happy until we have 100% turnout in New Mexico.

Democratic candidate for New Mexico Secretary of State Katherine Clark.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me.

I really appreciate it.

We invited candidates in contested races ahead of the primary to join us.

There is just one Republican candidate running for Secretary of State, and that is Ramona Goolsby, who is running unopposed.

We'd also like to thank Amanda Lopez Askin for participating in this interview style forum.

And thank you for watching Election 2026 coverage on KRWG Public Media.

You can find this program and a link to previous election 2026 coverage, including the Democratic and Republican Primary Candidate Debate and Forum respectively on our website KRWG dot org.

where you can also find more candidate interviews for primary races around our region as they've been conducted.

Election day is Tuesday.

New Mexico now has semi-open primaries, meaning declined to state or independent voters may select a major party's ballot in order to vote in that party's primary.

More information can be found at NM vote dot org.

With the time we have left.

KRWG Public Media Membership Coordinator Liz Liano spoke with the 2026 mayor's top teens.

Here's her conversation with Centennial grad Amy Sheen.

Hi.

Welcome to Mayor's Top Teens.

I'm Liz Liano, and we're going to be talking with Amy Sheen.

Amy, welcome and congratulaions on being a Mayor's Top Teen.

It's an honor.

Well, it's so great to have you here today.

Thank you.

So we'd love to know a little bit about you.

What are some of your activities and some of the things that have got you into being Mayor's Top Teen?

So at school I'm currently the president of HOSA its Health Occupations Students of America, and I also partake in MESA, Science Olympiad.

I'm in National Honor Society.

And, you know, outside of school, I'm in track and field.

I rock climb a lot as a hobby and I do puzzles.

I'm also an altar server at my church up in El Paso, because we have a little Korean community up there.

So over the weekends, I also help the elderly, you know, take them to the doctor's appointments, help them translate, you know, into English.

And, yeah.

Wow, that is quite a list.

Oh my goodness.

Okay, so, you do a lot of activities in your school.

You said you do HOSA and the Science Olympiad, right?

I do.

So what does, HOSA consist of?

What is that?

So a HOSA is primarily, health occupations.

So I went into it thinking I wanted it to focus on the dental dentistry in my future.

But because HOSA offers such a wide variety of all the medical fields I dabbled into, you know, nursing, which is hopefully what I'm going to major in now.

So we do competitions, regionals, states and internationals actually.

Last year internationals at Nashville and it was very fun.

I built a lot of friendships over HOSA and yeah, I think that solidified my future career.

And what is your future career you want to do?

Nursing.

I would love to major in nursing.

Wonderful, wonderful.

And do you have an idea, what do you want to specialize in something as a nurse?

Yes, I've been looking into the CRNA programs, but however, it's a very long route.

And to before becoming a CRNA, you have to be into like an ICU nurse first and you have to go back into grad school.

But long way, but very hopefull.

Can you school me what, what is CRNA?

CRNA is a nursing in specialties in anesthesiology.

So you just aid the anesthesiologist.

And, you know, it's more primarily in the surgical field.

Oh.

Yes.

Wow.

That sounds pretty up there.

Yes.

But that's your aspiration.

Okay cool.

And you also said you do the Science Olympiad.

I do and does that also dovetail that interest?

Yeah.

So.

Science Olympiad is a lot more broader.

They have engineering, astronomy, I primarily focused on anatomy and physiology.

And I dabbled in some code busters.

I did a lot of computer science classes in school.

So that helped a lot as well.

Very cool.

Wow.

Such diverse scientific interests.

Very cool.

And you also do a lot of community service.

You said you, participate at your church.

Yes.

Cool.

So, Amy, what school do you want to end up going to?

I did apply.

Oh, like, everywhere, though.

I did it like the West coast, the East coast.

But my sister goes in the East coast, at Boston College.

So hopefully around there.

If not, I would love to live in Texas as well.

Wonderful.

I'm sure living near your family is always nice.

It is.

Great.

And, let's see.

And you want to study to be a nurse?

Yes.

Fantastic.

Well, it sounds like you've got a lot to keep you busy in the mean time.

For sure.

Wonderful.

Well, I want to congratulate you again Amy for being a Mayors Top Teen.

Thank you.

Our thanks to Liz Liano and Amy Sheen.

Keep watching for more mayor's top teens interviews and find them as they become available at KRWG.org.