Election offices nationwide can now pursue certification in 11 of the voluntary, nonpartisan Standards developed by the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence — universal election administration guidelines created with the input of hundreds of election officials nationwide. Throughout 2026 and beyond, we’ll be featuring the stories of election offices’ journeys through the Alliance Certification Program.

Doña Ana County on the U.S.-Mexico border, New Mexico’s second-largest county by population, is known for many things: Hatch chiles, pecans, lava fields, New Mexico State University, and the legend of Billy the Kid. Now, its election department seeks to be known as Election Excellence Certified: the county has applied for certification in all eleven Standards for Election Excellence currently available through the Alliance Certification Program.

Doña Ana is involved with the Pathfinder Cohort (a group of 50 election offices designated as Centers for Election Excellence) that helped to road-test the Standards from 2025-2026. “We run excellent elections, but there’s always room for improvement,” said Bureau of Elections Supervisor Janice Giron of the decision to participate in the initial Standard-testing process. “Something that really helped me and my team during the process was realizing we’re not alone in some of the issues we face.”

Why Get Certified?

Doña Ana’s staff cited many reasons to apply formally for certification, including improving voter trust in a borderland community where misleading and inaccurate information can often spread unchecked. “Voters look at the certifications as going a little bit above and beyond what we actually need to do in the clerk’s office — and that instills more trust in the public eye,” said Janice. Added County Clerk Dr. Amanda López Askin: “Certification is something you can carry with you when you’re in spaces where you want to showcase your professionalism, the depths of our training and understanding of the profession, and all the ripple effects of it.”

Another draw was the fact that the Standards are flexibly designed to work for jurisdictions in all zip codes. “Harding County has fewer than a thousand voters, while Bernalillo County is three times our size,” said Caroline Zamora, Chief Deputy Clerk. “The Standards take those differences into account by exploring how excellence is possible for a department of any size, anywhere.” 

And while Janice is pursuing her own CERA (Certified Elections Registration Administrator) certification, Caroline added, “We’re lucky to have low turnover, but a certification that our staff can all work on at the same time and all together to improve our office overall — that’s really appealing.”

Why all 11 Standards?

As certification requires no coursework, simply a demonstration of work already being done, Doña Ana decided to move forward confidently. “Caroline and I came to the consensus that our team does really well, so we decided to go for it and see what happens across all 11 Standards,” said Janice. 

The application process across all 11 Standards proved to be smoother than expected, especially given that the team applied in the midst of administering the June 2026 New Mexico primary. “I would send pertinent questions to pertinent people, and collect the answers for everything that way,” said Janice, who also served as the team’s lead certification contact. The process produced a sense of pride. “It was amazing that we were able to apply for certification in all 11 Standards and have the things that we needed mostly already queued up to be able to put those applications in,” she said. 

Across Standards, the questionnaire and application process gave Doña Ana’s staff much to reflect on in terms of existing excellence, including: 

• Strong relationships built over time with local commissioners and funding decisionmakers, which has allowed the office to budget effectively despite statewide funding challenges in New Mexico 
• Diligent adherence to New Mexico’s tabulation audit processes, which involve both county-level and state-level canvasses, as well as its evolving voter registration processes (including New Mexico’s recently implemented automatic voter registration) 
• The fruits of prior work with the county’s Office of Emergency Management, which has resulted in a continuity plan as well as an upcoming mobile voting unit ready to deploy to affected areas
• An AI translation tool built in collaboration with U.S. Digital Response that meets the office’s rapid-response Spanish-translation needs across both language and tone (e.g. flyers vs press releases) 
• Ongoing community relationships with third-party voter registration organizations, Spanish-language radio stations, farmers markets, and the university (“it helps people to trust us when they can see our faces,” said Communications Coordinator Cynthia Diaz)
• Active voter communications channels including social media, YouTube, Substack, and a podcast, Preserving History and Democracy, that gives an inside view of New Mexico elections while exploring the state’s rich history. “To fight misinformation we have to communicate as much as possible. We’re the authority and where we really excel is at putting out the information,” said Caroline, adding, “We also do bilingual work anywhere we can, especially on video.”

The certification process also prompted thoughts for improvement. “For example, questions about our specific standard operating procedures for language translation or community outreach made us realize we hadn’t really sat down and created them for various processes, and that we needed to do that,” said Cynthia. 

Doña Ana’s eleven applications are now all in review with the Alliance Certification Program’s independent certifying body. “It was a great experience for the team, and really about showing off our great work,” said Janice. “We’ll probably pursue certification in more Standards as they open up from here. It’s a great way to improve things for the team and for voters.” 

Said Caroline: “Once we hear back on all eleven, we’ll probably do an episode on the podcast.”

Learn more about the Standards for Election Excellence and set up your office’s free certification account today.