As shared in a story yesterday, I wrote a letter to the Secretary of State’s office informing them they had a bad data release. This release released the names and addresses of individuals who had accidentally signed up for an account through the SoS portal when they were trying to sign petitions to have their name added to a list of declared candidates for U.S. Senate. I was one of several individuals that had this occur.

The Secretary of State’s office has now removed the names of at least three individuals– myself included– who had errantly been added to the Secretary of State’s signature petition portal. The SoS seemingly admits the mistake by removing the names of these individuals and making our petition accounts inaccessible. However they haven’t contacted me to tell me they’ve fixed their mistake, or apologized for releasing my information into a database of over 400,000 New Mexico voters. Have they reached out to Dia Garcia of Chavez County whose information was also leaked as a “U.S. Senate candidate?” How about Paul A. Cantu who was also listed in the system as running for “Congressional Districts. 2” from Otero County? Will the office admit they failed in this data breach, apologize to us and change their system so that this won’t happen again?

In the case of Dia Garcia and I– our information information was errantly leaked to a database that is accessible to 413,341 registered Republican votes according to the Secretary of State’s latest registration data released to the public on their website dated January 31, 2024 (barring those who had already signed petitions– which still leaves at least accessible to 400,000 people).

Where’s the explanation? Where’s the apology? As stated previously, in addition to having my information removed and corrected, I want the individual(s) who has signed to put me on the ballot told about the mistake that your office made in allowing my name to be viewed on the portal. This mistake on the part of your office, that implied– for two days– that I am running for federal office, and created the groundwork for legal ramifications that your office would be subject to respond to.