SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — President Donald Trump abruptly asked a court Monday to drop a lawsuit that challenged New Mexico’s use of drop boxes for absentee ballots in the 2020 general election as well as vote-counting equipment sold by Dominion Voting Systems.
The request filed Monday with a federal court in Albuquerque would dismiss the lawsuit from Trump but allow the concerns to be revisited. Similar allegations by the Trump campaign about Dominion vote-counting have been rejected as without evidence by the federal agency overseeing election security.
State election regulators want allegations in the case to be dismissed permanently. The Secretary of State, Maggie Toulouse Oliver, issued the following statement in response:
“The Trump campaign today filed to withdraw their lawsuit against my Office attempting to invalidate New Mexico’s secure and lawful 2020 General Election and withdrew their overly burdensome public records requests motivated by an outlandish conspiracy theory involving Dominion Voting Systems. As no new facts have come to light since they filed this lawsuit and records requests, except the anti-democratic horror show that played out as the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday, this withdrawal suggests that the Trump campaign knew from the very beginning that their lawsuit was baseless and that it was simply a political show. Let me be clear: New Mexican election officials ran one of the safest and most secure elections in our state’s history and yet this lawsuit attempted to throw out the votes of every New Mexico voter who cast a lawful ballot last November. I’m pleased that they have sought to withdraw their frivolous lawsuit, but it’s only the first step President Trump and his enablers should be taking to fix the damage they have wrought on our democratic republic. New Mexico voters deserve strong, pro-active condemnations of the President’s actions. Simply withdrawing this lawsuit does not undo the weeks of lies and disinformation parroted by President Trump and leaders of the New Mexico Republican Party like Steve Pearce and Yvette Herrell.”