About the County Clerk

Clerk Linda Stover

Bernalillo County voters decisively chose Linda Stover to serve as the next Bernalillo County Clerk in the fall of 2016. She pledged to increase Bureau of Elections community outreach to increase voter registration and voter turnout, and to ensure that documents maintained in Recording and Filing are accurate and easily accessible for the public.

Since that time she has administered fair and honest elections while increasing voter participation.Turnout for the 2018 midterm election in Bernalillo County was the highest since 2000. The first Regular Local Election in 2019 drew nearly 24% of county voters versus 8% for the 2015 municipal election featuring the same Albuquerque City Council seats and bond issue ballot questions.The 2020 primary election was historic for turnout as well as the fact that it took place during the coronavirus pandemic. At the time of this writing, unofficial results for the 2020 primary election suggest a turnout of 40%.

Innovations include introduction of a mobile voting unit and the production of civic plaza events for National Voter Registration Day. Clerk Stover has also spearheaded educational initiatives to get students interested in civics. These efforts culminated in the creation of the Bernalillo County About My County Activity Book. Albuquerque Public Schools embraced the civics teaching resource and distributed it to all 4th grade students in the APS system. And the National Association of Counties awarded Clerk Stover a 2020 Achievement Award for the book in the category of Civic Education and Public Information.

Last year Clerk Stover was elected Vice President of the Board of Directors of New Mexico Counties, a nonprofit, nonpartisan association. She is an active community volunteer serving groups such as the New Mexico Nursing Board, the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy Board and the OFFCenter Community Arts Program. She also served the City of Albuquerque for 12 years on the Albuquerque International Sunport Airport Advisory Board.

Ms. Stover brings a long history of public service to New Mexico and Bernalillo County. She served two terms as a board member with the Albuquerque Metropolitan Area Flood Control Authority and worked 29 years at the New Mexico Rural Rehabilitation Corporation, including 15 years as executive director. In 1996 she broke the glass ceiling to become the first woman to be elected president of the National Association of Rural Rehabilitation Corporations.

Ms. Stover is a native of Carlsbad. She’s also a graduate of Sandia High School and studied at Fullerton Junior College and the University of New Mexico. She was married to the late Bob Stover of Taos, New Mexico, two-term Bernalillo County sheriff and twice-appointed Albuquerque police chief, who so far is the only police chief to serve two appointments. But Linda’s grandson, Sam Olmsted, truly has her heart.

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