Early, absentee voting turnout breaks records
Levels top those of previous non-presidential elections
SANTA FE — With hotly contested races for governor and Congress on the ballot, early and absentee voting levels in New Mexico have eclipsed final 2010 and 2014 early vote levels — with several days to spare.
A total of 300,016 New Mexico voters had cast ballots in early and absentee voting through Tuesday, according to figures released Wednesday by the Secretary of State’s Office. Early voting runs through Saturday at designated voting sites statewide.
“We’re looking at record-breaking turnout for early voting in non-presidential election years,” said longtime New Mexico political observer Brian Sanderoff.
Registered Democrats have been voting at a slightly higher rate statewide than registered Republicans, though Republicans have been narrowing the gap in recent days, Sanderoff said.
He also said the political party that’s more energized in a given election cycle generally tends to vote at a higher clip during early voting.
“I think there are a lot of Democrats that want to make a statement and are really angry at Donald Trump,” said Sanderoff, president of Albuquerque-based Research & Polling Inc.
In 2014, a total of 519,436 registered New Mexico voters cast ballots — or about 40.4 percent of registered voters. A total of 268,310 voters cast ballots via early and absentee voting in that year’s gubernatorial race between Republican Susana Martinez and Democrat Gary King, which Martinez won easily.
And in 2010, the most recent year before this year that there was an open race for governor, a total of 607,700 voters cast ballots statewide. The total of those voting early or absentee that year was 297,768.
This year’s increase in early and absen-
tee voting is not necessarily a harbinger of higher final turnout, Sanderoff said, since voters have increasingly been deciding to cast their ballots before Election Day.
In addition, some voters could simply be seeking to be done with the ballot box early this year, since several races have featured hard-hitting attack ads.
That includes the race for governor, which pits Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham against Republican Steve Pearce, and the race for the open southern New Mexico-based 2nd Congressional District featuring Republican Yvette Herrell and Democrat Xochitl Torres Small.
Both contests have featured a barrage of TV advertisements paid for by the candidates and various national groups. Vice President Mike Pence traveled to Roswell last week to stump for Pearce and Herrell.
Overall, the slightly more than 300,000 registered voters who had cast ballots in early or absentee voting through Tuesday represent nearly 24 percent of the more than 1.2 million New Mexicans registered to vote in this year’s general election.
In three counties — Los Alamos, Santa Fe and Sierra — the turnout has already exceeded 30 percent.
By political party, 27.5 percent of registered Democrats had already voted early or absentee through Tuesday, compared with nearly 26.7 percent of registered Republicans, according to data compiled by Research & Polling Inc.
Roughly 13 percent of independent voters — or those who decline to state a party affiliation — had cast ballots, although independents make up about 22 percent of registered voters statewide.
Meanwhile, 15.9 percent of registered New Mexico Libertarians had cast ballots in early and absentee voting though Tuesday. Libertarians are the state’s third major political party for this year’s election cycle and have candidates running for U.S. Senate and two of the state’s three congressional seats.
Even with the increased turnout, Bernalillo County election officials say voters haven’t had to wait too long, perhaps eight to 12 minutes at some points in the day. Early voting locations tend to be busiest around lunchtime and as people leave work, and there may be longer lines late in the day Saturday, when early voting ends, Deputy Bernalillo County Clerk Jaime Diaz said.
But overall, he said, “The wait is pretty manageable.”