Make your voice heard: Register to vote
The June primary is a month away, and that means anyone who wants help select candidates for the November general election must register to vote by Tuesday, May 8.
Voting is not just a right, it’s our civic responsibility, whether selecting a magistrate judge or a governor.
When registering, make sure to declare a political party, or face being unable to participate in the primary. New Mexico’s primaries are closed, meaning only members of a particular political party can take part in selecting nominees for November. (Or, if you are registered, say, as a Libertarian, but want a say in the Democratic Party primary, switch parties before Tuesday.)
Citizens can register at the local County Clerk’s Office — in Santa Fe, 102 Grant Ave. — or at the Office of the Secretary of State, 325 Don Gaspar Ave., or online at www.sos. state.nm.us/Voter_Information/voterinformation-portal.aspx. The voter portal also is a place for voters to make sure they are registered, the right political party is recorded and all their information is correct. It’s no fun to show up on election day and find out you can’t vote.
Voting, as we have come to see more forcefully since the 2016 presidential election, works best when many participate. When voters are lazy, apathetic or cynical, bad people can get elected. Such officeholders often do not represent the will of the people, or even of the pool of registered voters. No, such elected officials — from Washington, D.C., down to a local county commission — represent that small group of citizens who showed up to vote and often, the fat cat donors who put them in office. We cannot allow a minority to continue to run the country. It’s dangerous and it is hardly democratic.
We do not care for New Mexico’s current primary system. It excludes too many voters — everyone who declined to state a political party preference — from joining in. A better system would make sure that all who choose to participate in a primary be allowed to vote.
A system that can exclude a third or more of voters from even having a say on who will be running in November no longer serves New Mexico. As of February 2018, according to the secretary of state’s voter registration data, Democrats had 46 percent of registered voters, Republicans 31 percent, with decline to state a robust 22 percent.
That means 22 percent of voters, unless they change their party preference by Tuesday, won’t get a say come June 5. Considering that in Santa Fe County, most Democratic down-ballot candidates will not have opponents in the fall, many voters will not get to help choose the next sheriff or magistrate judge. In New Mexico counties where the GOP is more powerful, Democratic primary voters or decline-to-state voters do not get a choice, either, since the election is decided in June. No wonder so many people are not interested.
We are watching with interest an experiment in Colorado, where unaffiliated voters will be able to take part in the state’s June 26 primary without declaring a party — they can only participate in one party primary but they get to stay unaffiliated. Proposition 108, approved narrowly in November 2016, replaces a system where such independent voters could participate but had to choose a party, often on the day of the election. Now, it’s more of a free-for-all. We think the result will be more sensible general election candidates, with the party base — often the most rabid conservatives or liberals — having less say in choosing candidates. What a relief that would be to our overpoliticized system of governing.
The bottom line is that citizens pay for primaries — all taxpayers, not just the members of a political party, and all those who are eligible and fund the primaries should be allowed to vote. New Mexico might find a different way of opening up primary voting (we admire the system that lets all candidates run on one ballot, with voters picking the top two regardless of party), but expanding opportunity to vote should be the goal — always.
First, though, citizens must register to vote. Then, they can make their voices heard at the ballot boxes. Without robust participation, anything — and we mean anything — can happen.