Ranked voting remains on hold
Councilors, still concerned about vendor, rushed timeline, uphold earlier decision for a delay
The Santa Fe City Council late Wednesday upheld an earlier decision to delay implementation of rankedchoice voting, with a majority expressing concerns that the city wouldn’t have enough time to successfully pull off the new balloting system in the March 2018 municipal election.
The governing body voted 6-3 against a motion that would have directed City Clerk Yolanda Vigil to move forward with ranked-choice voting in next year’s city election contingent on the New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office certification of new software for voting machines.
Councilors Carmichael Dominguez, Mike Harris, Peter Ives, Signe Lindell, Chris Rivera and Ron Trujillo voted to deny the motion while Mayor Javier Gonzales and Councilors Joseph Maestas and Renee Villarreal voted for it.
Although ranked-choice voting, also known as an instant runoff, has been used elsewhere for years, Harris said it was inappropriate to try to implement ranked-choice voting under a rushed timeline, agreeing with Ives that Santa Fe, which would have been the first city in New Mexico to roll out the voting system, shouldn’t be a “guinea pig.”
“There’s too many unknowns,” Harris said, “and there’s too much at stake.”
Last month, a split governing body voted 4-3 to delay ranked-choice voting until 2020. But since Ives and Dominguez were absent, Maestas, who is running for re-election, asked his colleagues to rescind the vote. Maestas, who also was on the losing side of last
month’s vote, argued that the issue was important enough for the entire governing body to reconsider.
“Democracy is messy. We had the Supreme Court decide the outcome of a presidential election,” he said. “I think there’s issues with the timeline. I understand that. But I think they can be overcome.”
Santa Fe voters nine years ago approved a city charter amendment that called for rankedchoice voting, but city officials have delayed implementation because equipment and software was unavailable.
The voting system allows voters casting ballots in races with multiple candidates to rank their choices. If a candidate receives more than half the votes cast, they win.
But if “no candidate receives a majority of the votes cast, the candidate with the fewest votes shall be eliminated,” according to the measure approved by voters. “Each ballot shall be tallied again for that office counting the vote from each ballot for the highest ranked candidate who has not been eliminated. If still no candidate for that office receives a majority, the process shall be repeated until a candidate receives a majority of the votes for that office.”
The charter amendment, which was approved by twothirds of voters, called for ranked-choice voting to go into effect during the March 2010 municipal election or as soon as “equipment and software for tabulating the votes and allowing correction of incorrectly marked, in-person ballots are available at a reasonable price.”
Vigil, the city clerk, has been hesitant to take a position on whether the city should move forward with ranked-choice voting in March, saying instead that she wanted direction from the governing body. When pressed by Trujillo on whether she thought the city could pull it off, Vigil said she had concerns about the timeline.
Santa Fe County Clerk Geraldine Salazar, who helps the city administer its elections, was more blunt, saying Vigil has “felt pressured for many years” to implement ranked-choice voting.
Salazar, like some city councilors, also expressed concerns about voting system vendor Dominion Voting.
“I want you to be mindful of your city clerk,” Salazar said. “She will not state this. But I will. It takes time to run elections. We are governed by laws. We have to do things right. … I’m not saying never implement. But consider the timing and the stress involved in getting this together.”
Last month, Vigil said Dominion Voting had developed software compatible with the city’s voting machines but that it hadn’t been independently tested by the federal Election Assistance Commission or certified by the Secretary of State’s Office.
In a July 12 letter to the mayor and city councilors, Steven Bennett, Dominion’s regional sales manager, said the voting system updates would be ready by the deadline imposed by the Secretary of State. Bennett said the company would apply for certification on or before Aug. 25. Certification by the Secretary of State’s Office takes about 30 days.
“This would give the city sufficient time to prepare for the use of [ranked-choice voting] in the March 2018 election if the city so chooses,” he wrote.
Some councilors have expressed concerns about Dominion missing deadlines in the past, and the city clerk said determining exactly how ranked-choice voting would work in Santa Fe could prove challenging in a short time frame and she would like to have perhaps six months to a year to conduct an outreach program to educate voters.
Before the vote, several people spoke in favor of the city trying to implement rankedchoice voting for next year’s election, including former Mayor David Coss and former City Attorney Frank Katz, who threatened legal action if the city doesn’t try, though the current city attorney, Kelley Brennan, said she isn’t too worried about defending the city if a lawsuit is filed.