Voting for Fair Elections in New Mexico with Katharine Clark

Dave Martin: This is the good government show.

Katharine Clark: We’ve been very aware of kind of negative consequences of a lot of the hyperbole online, regarding elections and election officials.

And I think that the county clerk, the person who’s running the election, should not be the reason someone wins or loses. That should be the best candidate, best campaign.

Good government is accessible, transparent and is working to improve the experience of their constituents.

We know that it can be frustrating. We know there’s a lot of messaging out there to make people feel like they, that their vote doesn’t matter. And that’s one of the reasons why in our civics education education program, we specifically emphasize that there’s a lot of people who are paying a lot of money to get you not to vote.

so we say don’t be hacked. Make sure that no matter what you go to the polls, you make a voting plan and you vote. For me? you know, protecting the right to vote is protecting all people. And that’s what we need to do to protect democracy.

Dave Martin: Welcome to the Good government show. I’m your host, Dave Martin. On this episode, we’re going to learn a lot about elections. Our guest is Catherine Clark, and she’s a county clerk of Santa Fe County, New Mexico. We talk about elections, how elections are run and handled, and how we can all help ensure free and fair elections. And as a county clerk and being in charge of elections, she’s faced challenges no elected officials should.

And she described yourself as no nonsense. She’s impressive. She also talks about a plan with high school students learning about voting and ice cream. It’ll make sense. And volunteering. We also talk about the Native American staple Frybread. just listen. You’ll hear more about Frybread. If you’re concerned about elections, you’re gonna learn something. But there’s more to this job.

Like marrying people and teaching about government. So join me as I talk to a county clerk on the front lines of government. Santa Fe, New Mexico County clerk, Catherine Clark. And she’s up right after this on a good government show.

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So we always start with the hardest question. First if you would introduce yourself tell us where you’re from, what your title is and where you are.

Katharine Clark: I’m Katharine Clark, I’m the Santa Fe county clerk from Santa Fe County, New Mexico. We’re here at Naco, which is the National Association of counties here in Austin, Texas.

Dave Martin: You’re the first county clerk I have spoken with. Tell me a little bit about the job this is an elected office. Tell me about it.

Katharine Clark: So, county clerks in New Mexico, it’s a constitutional office, one of five that our countywide, and our job is to run elections. So we are the election official in each of our counties. We are also the, recorder. So when you’re recording real estate documents, we hold those public records. We are the clerk of the probate court.

we also, issue marriage licenses. we also are the clerk of the board of county commissioners. So our job is transparency. And then we have a lot of other miscellaneous duties that are under our, purview.

Dave Martin: Have you actually married people?

Katharine Clark: Yeah. we are, and I don’t do association if I’m the person who has signed the certificate. But we have about 200 marriages, a month and 400 in the summer.

Dave Martin: Really? 200 a month?

Katharine Clark: Yeah. We are a very, destination. Wedding destination. county. So people sometimes when they’re just driving through, get married, just like I assume they do in Vegas.

Dave Martin: Wow. How many weddings have you been to?

Katharine Clark: so many. So Friday is Wednesday, and Friday is when our probate judge comes in and we get. We have weddings every 15 minutes.

Dave Martin: how many in a day?

Katharine Clark: maybe upwards of 20. We could do. So. Yeah, we we’re busy.

Dave Martin: Why is it a wedding destination?

Katharine Clark: I think the actually, the city has spent some time on marketing. We are pretty well known for being an LGBTQ friendly locale. and as a result, we have a population of people who, consider us a cool place to be. There’s a lot of skiing. So sometimes when people are on vacation, they get married. but also, I know that they’ve spent quite a bit of, lawyers tax dollars on marketing it as a wedding destination.

So we, we then when people arrive, they realize they have to go buy a marriage license. So we’ve actually been called up on Saturday morning and I’ve gone to the office to issue a marriage license because people forgot they had to get a license to get married. Yep.

Dave Martin: So you say, stuck around to watch the wedding? Yes. So I have never been to New Mexico. I have never been to Santa Fe. Paint a picture of your town from your seat of your county?

Katharine Clark: Sure. It’s the country’s, oldest capital. We are 400 years old. it’s been, continuously, habitant inhabited for maybe, 3000 years. we are also the tallest capitol. People sometimes think it’s Denver, but it’s actually New Mexico. we are a mountain town. We have skiing about 20 minutes up the hill. We are all Pueblo and Adobe, architecture.

We’re famous for. We’re an arts town. it’s the state capitol. We are the only state capital that has a round around, legislature, bicameral legislature building. So, it’s a really great place to be. great food, great culture. you know, if you have never been to Santa Fe, you know, come spend the week, do the feast days at the pueblos, come do the Spanish markets, come see the art community.

come to the hot springs, come to the skiing. You know, we got we.

Dave Martin: Got it all feast days of the pueblo. You have to explain that one.

Katharine Clark: So feast days is really important. it’s part of their religious calendar, but, visitors are welcome during feast day. Of course, the idea is to be respectful. Don’t take pictures if they’re asking you not to, but they do, tribal dancing and, welcome people to come eat, traditional foods and, see what the what their cultures are all about.

So it’s really, you know, ability to sort of see how they’ve preserved their culture and working on teaching the next generation their dances and, traditions.

Dave Martin: And how do you like the traditional foods?

Katharine Clark: Well, the traditional foods are amazing. So they’re very well known for frybread, for, green Chile, stew is a really famous one. in terms of Hispanic culture, we have some papayas, which are, fried deep fried tortillas that then are, dipped in honey. the state cookie is, okay. I can think of it for a second.

Hold on the state, cookie. It’s like lard any so I can think of it.

Dave Martin: I’ll distract you. Explain frybread to me.

Katharine Clark: Frybread is, just what it’s called, but it’s a traditional, native bread. it’s probably comes out of when people lived in the cliff dwellings, as such as Bandelier and, because people used to live and along cliff sides and actually can go see the ruins. But, about 1300, in 1300, they came off of the cliffs and moved towards, the river in the valley may have been a dry period, so they needed to move closer to the river, but, they were growing, corn.

And then when we came in with the, colonists, they started making wheat based bread, which is what Frybread is, and it’s, you know, baked in home ovens, in sort of their Adobe houses. And it’s very, very tasty. And they serve it with, you know, green chilies do. And it’s a very traditional, pueblo meal.

Dave Martin: Can you make frybread yourself?

Katharine Clark: no, I would not try to make frybread. I would not get it right. It’s probably not hard to make, but I would probably not get it right. You know, it is cooking at altitude, so you got to be kind of, a good chemist to get things right in New Mexico. Like when I’m, you know, we’re at 6000ft.

So if you’re trying to cook bread or anything that requires, leavening, it’s it’s actually kind of a challenge.

Dave Martin: So you said Santa Fe has been occupied for 3000 years. Who lives.

Katharine Clark: There? so we are the original, indigenous lands. maybe. Okay. So, tell you what, people. So there’s, like, there’s three branches of indigenous language in New Mexico. There’s Toa, there’s Taylor, and there’s tower. We actually, are, you know, we have four tribes in our county. It’s an old Afonso, porque to Suki and, non-pay.

And they’re all kind of branches of the same language, but they are the traditional pueblos that have been there a very long time, and that’s that, that, that bowl that, valley has been occupied for a very long time in New Mexico.

Dave Martin: What was attractive to you about being elected county clerk?

Katharine Clark: For me, it was about, you know, what is you know, I think there was a lot of questions about democracy and and what government was doing. And can we rely on the vote? so I started getting very interested in running for county clerk around 2017. so I did actually a couple of government training programs. And then when our current county clerk, turned down, I decided to run for office and, won 54% in my five day primary.

There has been a lot of discussion nationally about the election integrity. What would you say to folks, you know, can you assure them that everything’s fine?

Well, I think one of the best assurance is to volunteer to be a poll worker, go to the training, see how your county conducts their elections. one of the things that we do is we work very hard to reach some of those who are, maybe nervous or unsure about the election process and, ask them to take the poll worker training.

we work very hard in election security. We’ve introduced chain of custody programs. We track all of our ballot transportation. we have video cameras on everything. So not only do we, you know, we are assured of the process. We also have sort of a trust but verify, philosophy in our office.

Dave Martin: I was talking with the county commissioner in Pennsylvania who said that the head of their election office had been there for like 25 years. And in the last few years, they’ve gone through like five, Board of Elections supervisors when they had one person forever. Any problems, any challenges for you now? Well, we.

Katharine Clark: Come from a state where there is a contingent of election deniers. And we’ve also had, a gentleman. His name was, Simon Pena. He was going around and shooting at, elected officials houses and was stalking them. So we’ve definitely had, an interesting, experiences as an election officials. I think my first, week in the job, someone, was following me around.

so it’s it’s been interesting. We’ve been very aware of kind of negative consequences of a lot of the hyperbole online, regarding elections and election officials.

Dave Martin: Does that in any way affect your interest and ability to stay on the job? And, you’re the the office to be able to continue to do the job?

Katharine Clark: No, I think, you know, my grandfather met the Russians at the Elm in World War two and then was in charge of P.O.W. camp and took defending democracy pretty seriously. My dad did 22 years in the military. My great aunt was in the military. I think I can trace military experience back ten generations. in terms of, either when this country existed or colonial times.

And so for me, being an election official is my generation’s, duty to serve their country. So.

Dave Martin: So you’re not intimidated?

Katharine Clark: No.

Dave Martin: No, that was that was a pretty quick. Not at all. do you have that reputation?

Katharine Clark: I’m pretty known for pretty. Pretty. No nonsense. Yeah. That’s great.

Dave Martin: Okay. we talked a little bit earlier, and you told me about a program where you’re teaching the next generation of students how to be voters. Can you explain that? Tell me what you’re doing.

Katharine Clark: So one of the things that we’ve noticed is, you know, just like I think any media discussion, will tell you is about people are very siloed. You know, there’s no dialog between silos. People are just getting their news from social media and nowhere else there’s we’re seeing less and less bipartisanship. We’re seeing less and less people seeing the same news sources.

and so and, you know, we’ve seen civics leave the classroom in favor of other requirements. and so as the county clerk, I felt it was my duty to go talk to high school students about just basic civic education and then to also try to combat some of that misinformation we’re seeing by physically bringing the tabulators to, the school, letting students look at it.

Dave Martin: Let’s say tabulators, you’re talking about voting machines.

Katharine Clark: You know, voting machines. Yeah. So we bring a voting machine. We have what’s called an ice cream ballot, which has super controversial things like, you know, your favorite ice cream flavor on it. and.

Dave Martin: What’s the favorite flavor?

Katharine Clark: depends on high school, actually. Okay. so, you know, like, for a high school, like strawberry, the school of the Arts, select, mint chocolate chip. Right. So it just depends on where you’re at. so we do, an ice cream ballot, we give the we talk to the students about what the voting process is.

We preregister them to vote because you can register to vote in New Mexico. And then they actually go through the procedure of filling out their own ballot, you know, and like, best practice, which is start from the back work to the front. Right. Because those, those, ballot questions are from the back. And sometimes people forget, and then they get to the handles, the permit.

Right. So it’s that whole we’re replicating the voting process to see how easy it is. they hand us the permit, they see their own ballot into the tabulator. They hear that ding. And then when we get to the end of the voting period, they get to see which ballots were cast and the results tapes to see that it does count ballots correctly.

Dave Martin: Do you do that every year?

Katharine Clark: We try to do that every year in every single high school.

Dave Martin: Yes. How many kids are you talking about?

Katharine Clark: so it depends on the high school. Some are as few as, you know, 30 to 40 and some are up to 100 students, you know, depending on who which, which, history class we get access to.

Dave Martin: So you’re saying just about every high school kid in Santa Fe practices voting before they vote?

Katharine Clark: That is the goal. Yes.

Dave Martin: Have you seen it make a difference?

Katharine Clark: Yes. We’ve actually seen. And this is could just be the effect of generation Z is very much more active. But we are seeing high school students, coming in higher numbers. We are also actually seeing. So it is it is actually a recruitment. I’ll just be honestly, it’s a recruitment mechanism for us because we can have student poll workers and it’s a good way of recruiting student poll workers because our, poll workers traditionally are older and retired.

But we have all this new technology tablets, right? All of this, very technical stuff. So it’s really good to pair a high school student, with an older presiding judge, that they can be the tech support for that presiding judge trying to manage a giant polling site. and it’s a really great way to teach, kids about, government when they volunteer as a poll worker.

And they actually do get paid. So that’s nice. But, you know, we our goal is to make sure that every student graduates from high school, understanding that voting is very easy, but also that their vote counts. We have very close races in New Mexico. And yes, it’s not a presidential where very blue state, but those local school board races, it’s a 300.

It’s a 300 total, vote vote count. So, one vote can really make a difference.

Dave Martin: Do they understand that?

Katharine Clark: Yes, they do, you know, get it right. They get it.

Dave Martin: You said preregister. you have to be 18 to vote. but you have to 18 register.

Katharine Clark: You can be 16 to preregister. And then when you when we know that you’re going to be, 18 before the general election, we take you out of suspense during a primary so that your registration is ready to go. And you can walk up to any polling place and vote in the primary. If you’re going to be 18 for the general election.

Dave Martin: So, yeah, I don’t know when your primary is, but it’s.

Katharine Clark: Some it’s June of the even numbered years. Yeah.

Dave Martin: So in a 17 year old kid who turns 18th December first, actually it have to be November.

Katharine Clark: First, early November, they would be able to vote.

Dave Martin: Yes. They can vote in the primary at 17 and then vote in the election. The general election. assuming that the timing is right. Oh, wow. Yeah. Is that unique to Arizona? Other states do that. Well, it’s.

Katharine Clark: New Mexico and that’s all right.

Dave Martin: Well sorry. So was that a huge flop I just did.

Katharine Clark: That’s all right. But we, Yeah, just I guess you’re just checking if I was paying attention. Yes. I.

Dave Martin: I don’t talk to somebody from Arizona a little while ago.

Katharine Clark: I don’t know, I mean, it is something that we are trying as a way to get students more involved, right? And the idea is that if you were to vote in the general and you didn’t get a chance to vote in the primary, then you didn’t get to choose who was on the ballot. You’re saying in general. So the idea is when you can vote in the primary, then you have ownership of the entire election process.

Dave Martin: What would you what do you say and what would you say to people who say, oh, the elections aren’t fair. The system is horrible. nothing is right. I can’t trust the election.

Katharine Clark: First thing is to volunteer to be a poll worker. and then volunteer to be a challenger. I mean, one of the things that’s really important in New Mexico is we’re constitutionally obligated to make sure that every single polling place has, a presiding, balance of Republicans and Democrats, and libertarians as, as a presiding judge, an election judges that’s actually constitutionally required.

But also every party can send, what’s known as challengers. And they come and they make sure that we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing. So it’s a very transparent process. and it’s important that that, observational, element is happening so that we, you know, that even if we are intending to do something wrong, that, our mistakes are caught before the end of the election.

Dave Martin: Is that different than to being a poll.

Katharine Clark: Watcher? Okay, so there’s, there’s three different kinds of things in New Mexico. There’s challengers and they’re appointed by the county party. So my county parties appoint challengers. They in New Mexico now have to be trained on basic rules of what they’re allowed and not allowed to do. That’s a new law in New Mexico. But they can show up with a letter of, appointing and then they just, become the challenger one.

And there’s one challenger assigned to each polling place. A watcher are people who, are appointed by the state party and may go through the secretary of state. You have to give the Secretary of State seven days notice. And then, observer observers are usually people from like UN or other organizations that are just observing the election process.

Dave Martin: I know that in, past elections, there have been people who are using air quotes here, poll watchers that seem to be more, interested in intimidating people from voting. Yeah.

Katharine Clark: so there are very strict rules about, being a challenger and being a watcher. When you show up to a polling place, we actually have a credential check in. You get our issued credentials. But the presiding judge, and the rules are such that if you are doing something outside of the scope of what you’re allowed to do, we actually require that your letter, your appointment letter, have the cell phone number of the person who’s from the party.

And we definitely call it if you’re doing something you’re not supposed to be doing.

Dave Martin: So that thus ensuring election integrity.

Katharine Clark: Yes, yes.

Dave Martin: Have you had problems?

Katharine Clark: You’ve had 1 or 2 people who, you know, we’re very enthusiastic and we’ve had to call their ringler and their wrangler calls them and says, knock it off. And and then it’s not a problem.

Dave Martin: So very enthusiastic. And their wrangler calls them off. All right.

Katharine Clark: So, you know, I mean, a lot of it’s just people who just don’t know. They just don’t know the rules. Right?

Dave Martin: So I guess New Mexico still is in many parts the Old West. Yes.

Katharine Clark: Yes. Sometimes. Yes. Yeah.

Dave Martin: After you get done with this episode, hear more good government stories with our friends at How to Really Run a City. Former mayors Kasim Reed of Atlanta and Michael Nutter, a Philadelphia, and their co-host, journalist and author Larry Platt talk with guests and other mayors about how to really get stuff done in cities around the nation. Check them out where you’re listening now or through their nonprofit news site, The Philadelphia Citizen.

Dot org slash podcasts.

Now we’re going to get to the heart of your of your experience and your the heart of your thoughts on government. You served for a little while as a county, as a county clerk from where you sit to find good government.

Katharine Clark: Good government is accessible, transparent and is working to improve the experience of their constituents.

Dave Martin: How do you judge your success as providing good government?

Katharine Clark: I actually, specifically poll my, used for elections. We actually have a, a QR code on the door, and we have a postal action survey. we do debriefing process with all of our poll workers. and we work very hard to fix every, you know, iteratively every election to improve the process, every single time.

Dave Martin: And what do you hear? What kind of feedback have you got?

Katharine Clark: So we know when maybe one poll worker was sort of didn’t know the rules very well. And we immediately respond and change it, for, poll workers, we actually discovered that we should be doing a mentorship, process because older poll workers were starting to retire and we wanted to retain that institutional knowledge. So now we have a mentorship process during the early voting period.

So that way people who are not quite ready to step up, learn how to do it during early voting so that on Election Day they can become a poll worker. And I was working very well. We actually are the first county in New Mexico, the last three elections to post our early and absentee results. First, what.

Dave Martin: Should people look for to determine if they’re getting good government? What should they use as their yardstick?

Katharine Clark: that’s a good question. you know, I think that local governments right now are struggling with, retention of employees or struggling with people leaving. They’re struggling with pay. but I think that, you know, a willingness to get back to you, even if they don’t know the answer, is very, very important for government. It just means that they still care, even if they can’t quite solve at that moment.

They are they are caring and and they’re following up with you trying to make sure they fix it.

Dave Martin: So people should make sure they get feedback from their elected officials. Absolutely. If they don’t think they’re getting the government that they want, I won’t say they deserve it. So I think they’re good to give the government what what should they do?

Katharine Clark: Register to vote and vote, I think is really important. What we’re seeing all over the country is people don’t have faith in government, which means they’re not voting. And what you know from the campaign world is that when you don’t vote, then those campaigns don’t even bother. Knock on your door, right? You’ve become an infrequent voter so they don’t care.

So you should always show up. And you should always, though, even if you’re not really that jazzed about who’s on the ballot. Because just from the sheer fact of doing that, you become the person who’s raised their hand to be counted. and that means that elected officials will come talk to you, campaigns will come talk to you.

They’ll you your answer will be more in the mix. and also means that your government, we are representative. So, you know, we want to make sure that people are voting so that the people who are in charge know that, at least they’ve had, a significant amount of the population voting for them.

Dave Martin: You’ve been at this office for a little while. you’ve said you’ve already announced that you’re going to run for reelection. What would you like people to know about how government works?

Katharine Clark: I think for government, what most people pay attention to is presidential. So we see very high turnout in the presidential years. but they don’t understand that, actually, the person who’s making the most difference in your day to day life is the person at the lower end of the ballot. So that’s your school board. That’s your commission, that’s your, city government.

Most people don’t even know what those people do. But your roads, your sewers, your trash, all of that is done by people at the local government level. And you should really get to know who your government officials are. I mean, most people that I talk to, you don’t can’t name who their commissioner is. They don’t know who their city councilor is.

They don’t know what those offices do. I think it’s really important to know.

Dave Martin: Well, certainly. I mean, do they do they know that those offices exist, that they have they.

Katharine Clark: Don’t know the offices. They don’t know they have functions. One of the reasons why we’ve done our civics education program, just to give, you know, people are just a general idea of what, you know, who you should be contacting when you have a certain kind of problem.

Dave Martin: Have any of the kids that you’ve have gone through the system, have them any have any of them, are they old enough yet to even run for elected office?

Katharine Clark: No. So I’ve only had office for three, three years. but they probably could run. I haven’t seen any on the ballot, but I know, you know, some have gone off to college and, you know, might be back and might be running.

Dave Martin: We hope you got a few political science majors out of this.

Katharine Clark: And yes, we definitely have some political science teachers.

Dave Martin: If any of them come and, you know, like come to meet you, come to your office, read today.

Katharine Clark: Yeah. So we, we are have an internship program. So some have expressed interest in our internship program and then have gone on to, do, you know, political science in college. many of their parents have actually written emails to us thanking us for engaging students. You know, they’ve they’ve seen a change among the kids who, you know, they said, you know, they’re the only elected officials ever interact with my kid.

And thank you for that, because that you just made them feel like someone cared about what they thought and what they think. So, you know, I really do think, you know, showing up, even if you don’t know the answer as an elected official is really important.

Dave Martin: Who is your hero in government or in politics?

Katharine Clark: that’s a really good one. you.

Dave Martin: Last like, gee, I don’t.

Katharine Clark: Know. It’s, so I really, you know, when I went to college, I had a congresswoman, and her name was Barbara Lee. and she was really a force of nature. and I, I spent some time in her office just shadowing her and her staff, and I thought her constituent services were excellent. And I saw them very much the same, with our local senator, Ben Ray Lujan.

I think the his commitment to constituent services is is unparalleled. He’s really, you know, he may not know the answer. His constituent services may not the answer, but they always follow up. Always.

Dave Martin: That’s what you want to make sure you’re heard and someone’s actually paying attention, right? Yes.

Katharine Clark: Absolutely. Yeah.

Dave Martin: All right. I have never been to New Mexico. I’m coming to Santa Fe. you talked about Frybread. what are we eating? Where are you taking me? Where are we going? Out. Let’s have a beer.

Katharine Clark: So the best red chili is, a place called La Chosen. It’s where all the locals and politicos. Politicos come and eat lunch. You’ll see all of the, you know, everybody in local government. It’s the red at the best red chili. But we also have.

Dave Martin: To stop right there. Red chili. What’s red chili?

Katharine Clark: Chili is just the ground, roasted red chili that, And it becomes a red chili sauce. You see it usually on beef and chicken, enchiladas. But it’s like, you know, it’s it’s excellent. We also are famous for.

Dave Martin: These, you know, beans and red.

Katharine Clark: Chili. no, no, it is not. It is just a red sauce you put on your meat. There is no beans in it. we also are known for, red. I’m sorry, green chili, which are hash green chili. Right. We have a rivalry with Colorado pretty famously about our green chili in New Mexico. Of course, that’s best.

but if you’re a true politician, you always say Christmas and Christmas, as you have both red and green. So when anyone asks you, are you a red or a green person? You as a politician, you of course say Christmas.

Dave Martin: So red chili. What else?

Katharine Clark: green chili then? we are known for, enchiladas. We’re known for, you know, typical New Mexican food. chicharron is they’re sort of like, chunks of pork that are deep fried, you know, and they’re almost like, you put them in a little, tube like cardboard to it in a tube and eat them. Pretty famous for that.

but we also have pretty fine dining in New Mexico. We have Geronimo’s and several other really famous restaurants that are really delicious.

Dave Martin: Any particular cuisine they serve at Geronimo’s or other places you mentioned?

Katharine Clark: Like kind of California or, sort of New Mexico with a California twist on it. Yeah. So it’s like, you know, local food and flavor, but, you know, with like a French Laundry kind of twist on it and it, it it’s pretty, you know, New Mexico is known for the foodie culture from everything from hole in the wall food trucks all the way up to, you know, very fine dining.

Dave Martin: So when did you know you wanted to get into politics growing up? Was it something you thought about? You know, you said you came from a military background. Did you want to join the Army or did you want to become president of the United States?

Katharine Clark: I was interested in joining the military. and I and I was considering it, for some time. I always knew I wanted to do politics because, you know, sort of high school experiences. My, you know, my mother is kind of, you know, modeled activism for me. and, you know, there’s a sort of a famous incident at my high school where they were bullying kids who were, who had come out as gay, and the high school wanted to, maybe not let them go to prom or not let them, participate in activities.

And my mother, really fiercely mama bared, and just said, even though they weren’t her kids and said, you know, like, try me. And so they dropped that idea. So I think for me, you know, protecting the right to vote is protecting all people. And that’s what we need to do to protect democracy.

Dave Martin: And what I think you said earlier to me, there was one particular incident that made you, so annoyed. You said, I want that job.

Katharine Clark: Yeah. There was an incident when I was, helping a friend run for city council. at the time, California did not have, what we call voting convenience centers. It was precinct voting. So you had to go to certain precinct. The ballots. unfortunately, they because so many students had pre-registered, they weren’t all actually in the voter file at that point.

So a lot of them had to use provisional ballots. And then the county clerk, unfortunately, was behind on, you know, they had mis estimated how many ballots they would need that day. So there was a 4 hour to 5 hour wait to wait for them to print more ballots. And a lot of students didn’t vote that day, which I think actually end up costing the person who was a student running for city council, the race.

and I think that the county clerk, the person who’s running the election, should not be the reason someone wins and loses. It should be the best candidate, best campaign.

Dave Martin: So you looked at that and said, I can do that better.

Katharine Clark: you know, my granddad went, you know, as an operations geek, my dad as an operations geek, and I think I’m an operations geek. So I just kind of went like, all right, well, I have some ideas.

Dave Martin: Fair enough. in your three years, can you give give me, where are the good government show is? We like to bring it back to good government at the end. Can you give me a good government project you’re especially proud of?

Katharine Clark: Yeah. So we, took a project that had been going on for 20 years, which was digitizing all of the records. You know, we have records going back, 200 years in Santa Fe County, and we finished the 500,000, records digitization. And we also just launched our self-service portals. Now people can at two in the morning in their pajamas by their real estate documents and have them email to themselves.

We also are the first county to text. You have a texting tracking program for people in there to, tracking their ballots. We have a much revamped, voter information website, Santa Fe Dot vote, which is the central portal for learning about how to vote. and we have, wait time tracking. So that way, if you’re wanting to figure out how to vote quickly, you can.

Dave Martin: All probably came as part of the high school project. sort of came together.

Katharine Clark: I know it’s just one of the many things we’re doing in Santa Fe to, you know, use technology to improve government. That’s my big push. So I.

Dave Martin: Get more people to vote and.

Katharine Clark: Get more people to vote. We have one of the highest. We have the second highest turnout in the state. And and I’m determined to be number one.

Dave Martin: So I was just going to ask, what’s the turnout?

Katharine Clark: so for the midterm, we’re about 67%. and we’re hoping to reach 80 if we can, one of these presidential years. Yeah.

Dave Martin: I am always stunned when I see especially the, you know, presidential level, the low turnout, the low numbers. How do you combat that?

Katharine Clark: We do a mix of radio. Oh, we do, turnout training with all of our parties and activist groups. We teach them about ballot chasing. We encourage people to actually, request a ballot early because that way we have an easier time pushing them to vote. Do all the things you we know from scientific studies that say turnout is important.

we talk about, you know, we do lots of radio, we do lots of newspaper, we do lots of sort of free media. We do community events. We do, all of everything that we can. If I had more money, I would do ten times more things.

Dave Martin: And if and when you see the turnout numbers, do you just sit there, go, what’s wrong with these people?

Katharine Clark: well, we we know that it can be frustrating. We know there’s a lot of messaging out there to make people feel like they, that their vote doesn’t matter. And that’s one of the reasons why, in our civics education program, we specifically emphasize that there’s a lot of people who are paying a lot of money to get you not to vote.

so we say don’t be hacked. Make sure that no matter what you go to the polls, you make a voting plan and you vote.

Dave Martin: Well, I have good news for you. First, I vote second. I was a poll worker, so.

Katharine Clark: Well, awesome. You’re one of the good ones.

Dave Martin: Thank you for saying that. Yes, I was I was a I was a poll worker. I was my job was to, enforce the law. They were worried that, in New York City, they were worried that the lines were going to get out of control. So I don’t know, I don’t know, I guess I was a former college, bar bouncer.

I was in charge of the line.

Katharine Clark: Well, you are rather tall, but I think, you know, for me, I feel that, No, no voter should wait more than 14 minutes to vote. And we’ve worked very, very hard to study where voters are voting. So if they’re if we see a lot of downtown voting behavior because people are voting, during work. So we’ve actually increased and, you know, we, we we spent a lot of time operationalizing, studying, looking at where, you know, data analytics from the Google site where people are thinking about voting and then adjusting accordingly.

Dave Martin: Well, Katharine Clark, county clerk for Santa Fe County, New Mexico, thank you very much for talking with us. It’s been a pleasure meeting you and chatting with you.

Katharine Clark: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Dave Martin: And keep going with good government and getting those kids out to vote.

Katharine Clark: Thank you so much.

Dave Martin: Where do you get your news from? Where do you get your state and local government news from? Because that’s getting harder and harder, and it’s essential to stay updated with your community. And it’s becoming increasingly important to know what’s going on in other cities and states, because they’re likely facing challenges that you’re grappling with, too, or you’re going to face eventually.

That’s why we’d like to welcome our new partner, route 50, to the show. Route 50 is a leading online publication covering state and local governments across the country. They’ve written about states protecting themselves against the rise in cyber attacks, counties using AI to better support citizens services, local responses to crumbling infrastructure and extreme weather, and much, much more.

There’s a lot there. It’s a one stop shop for issues affecting state and local governments and their residents. That’s you. That’s all of us. Do yourself a favor and go to route 50.com to see the topics and solutions they cover, and learn what other people in government are doing. They also deliver a daily newsletter called route 50. Today I see it in my inbox every morning.

I check it out and you should too. Thanks again. Route 50. We’re excited to have you on board and being a partner here at the Good Government Show.

What is it the county government does? That’s the question county commissioners get asked the most. And the simple answer is everything on the Good Government show. We’re so lucky to have talked with so many county commissioners and other county officials that have shown us how effective county government is. County government dates back to get this 1634, making it one of the oldest forms of government in the United States.

Think about it. Roads. Highways. Hospitals. Schools. Recycling. Law enforcement. Water. Sewers, and most of the county. Those services are maintained by the county. That’s county government. The National Association of Counties represents all 3069 counties across the USA. Naco helps county government work better together through things like sharing best practices. When county government works well, well, that’s just good government.

Your vote counts a good lesson not just for high school students, but for all of us. It sounds like the elections in Santa Fe County, New Mexico are in good hands and not unsurprisingly, County Clerk Kathryn Clark’s best advice to get good government is to vote. And, you know, try the red chili next time you’re in New Mexico.

Well, that’s our show. Thanks for listening. Hope you got some good insight into voting. I did make sure to listen again for another episode when I talked to another government leader on good Government. And please share this with your friends like us. And reviews right here where you’re listening. I’m Dave Martin and this is a good government show.

The Good Government Show is a Valley Park production. Jim Ludlow, Dave Martin. That’s me and David Snyder are the executive producers. Our show is edited and produced by Jason Stershic. Please subscribe then share and like us and reviews. That’s the best way to make sure we’re able to keep telling these stories of our government working for all of us.

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**This transcription was created using digital tools and has not been edited by a live person. We apologize for any discrepancies or errors.