County clerk defends plan for fewer precincts
Commissioners raise concerns about too few voting sites in rural areas
A divided Santa Fe County Commission on Tuesday approved the county clerk’s designated set of voting convenience centers for next year’s primary and general elections amid several commissioners’ concerns that although the centers would give voters more options on where to cast a ballot, there would now be too few polling places in rural areas.
The county will open 24 consolidated voting centers in next year’s elections — 10 of them inside the city of Santa Fe and 14 in other areas ranging from Sombrillo, a community just south of Española, to Stanley on the southeastern edge of the county to Edgewood in the far southwestern corner. Registered voters who reside in any of the 90-some precincts spread across the 1,900-square-mile Santa Fe County will be able to cast a ballot at any of the centers.
In prior election cycles, said Steve Fresquez, deputy chief of the county Bureau of Elections, as many as 51 polling places were used.
Commissioners, who finally voted 3-2 to approve the set of convenience centers after an extended debate, ques-
tioned County Clerk Geraldine Salazar’s move to consolidate precincts and said they had heard some complaints from constituents who would have to travel farther to vote or might lose what they had come to expect was their regular polling place.
Commissioner Anna Hamilton asked Salazar whether the consolidated precincts represented a “trend toward disenfranchisement,” and Commissioner Robert Anaya said there could be a risk that consolidating voting sites in less-populated areas would discourage turnout.
“All over the United States, we constantly and consistently hear feedback and horror stories about people who couldn’t get to the precincts or didn’t have the means or wanted to vote and couldn’t vote,” said Anaya, whose vast southern district comprises most of the county’s geographic area.
“Typically,” he said, “convenience centers are going to help because people can vote anywhere. But not having certain places where they can vote is going to potentially raise some concerns.”
Salazar defended what she called her office’s “strategically located” polling centers and said her staff had worked “vigorously” to determine where the county should host voting activity.
Internet connectivity, parking availability, areas where voters are concentrated and costs are among the criteria, Salazar said. She recalled one former polling place in the northern part of the county where turnout was so low the county spent $80 for each vote there to operate the polling place.
Voters are sometimes “attached to their polling place,” Salazar said. “But I have delayed this for a long time. People have been asking me and begging me at this point: ‘We really like vote [convenience] centers.’ ”
Salazar will continue to emphasize expanded early voting, she said, adding that recent election results have shown that a sizable portion of county voters turn out early.
Her staff would be responsible for educating the public about where and when they could vote, she said, with advertisements, increased signage and, in some areas, targeted letters.
“This is a better system for us now,” Salazar said.
Anaya and commission Chairman Henry Roybal voted against the resolution designating the polling places.
A pair of motions to approve the centers with conditional language that would have compelled the clerk to consider additional sites — in Galisteo, La Tierra and the west side of city limits — were withdrawn after Fresquez said the county’s deadline to submit its polling places to the Secretary of State’s Office is Monday.
Commissioner Anna Hansen said she would have liked more time to allow commissioners’ feedback to inform the process.
After the list is submitted to
the state, any voting center to be added to the county’s set would have to be approved through a court order, Salazar said.
But the clerk added after the vote that she would take commissioners’ concerns into account and was not opposed to that route if another center should be warranted.
“Court doesn’t scare me,” Salazar said. “That’s no problem.”
The 2018 New Mexico primaries are June 5, and the general election is Nov. 6, 2018.