Civics 101 is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The first time I ever voted, and this is not an exaggeration. I was shaking with anticipation.

I waited in line, walked up to the pole worker, gave them my name, got my ballot, again,

butterflies in my stomach, and then I stepped into the booth, pulled the curtain closed behind me.

My heart is actually racing at this point. And I filled out my ballot so excruciatingly carefully,

because God forbid I mess up and they don't count it, right? And then finally, lightheaded from

the sheer excitement of it, I walked that ballot over to the ballot box, feed it in, get my iVoted

sticker, and then... Then? Then? Then, I don't know. All that anticipation, all that

energy and excitement, all for what? My ballot just disappears into this black box,

and my job here is done, and now I go home and watch the election night returns, and I wonder,

did my vote actually count?

And how do I know? Am I one of those hundreds of thousands of votes under that candidate's name

in my state? Where did my ballot go? Who read it? So the first time you voted, you had an existential

crisis. And I didn't really solve it until about a week ago. This is Civics 101, I'm Hannah

McCarthy. I'm Nick Kepady-Chi. And we are about to find out how a vote goes from your mind to the

ballot, to the count, to the election of the people in charge of us. So, you know, this is where the

sausage-making of the election process comes into play. This is Maggie to lose Oliver.

New Mexico, Secretary of State, I was elected and basically immediately began serving as

Secretary of State in December of 2016. Prior to that, I was the county clerk in Bernalillo

County, which is the Albuquerque metropolitan area for 10 years, so I ran the elections there

at the ground level. And as Secretary of State, she also oversees elections at the state level,

right? Yes, New Mexico, the elected Secretary of State, is also the chief election official.

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