Fewer voters eligible for primaries

Twenty-two percent in state are registered as independents and excluded from closed elections

Early voting has begun and the independentminded among you are not invited.

That includes some 1 in 5 New Mexico voters.

Under the state’s closed primary system, voters must be registered with a political party to participate in its primary election and that precludes independents. So, only voters who marked “Democrat” on their voter registration cards, for example, can vote in the Democratic primary.

But a growing share of the state’s voters are independents. Twenty years ago, only 10 percent of voters were not affiliated with a political

party. Now, 22 percent of New Mexico’s registered voters are independents and so won’t have any electoral say in who ends up on the ballot in November’s general election.

For backers of the closed primary system, that is only fair. The thinking has been that if a voter cannot join a party in even the most basic sense, he or she should not get to decide which candidates that party nominates.

But that ideal appears to be on a collision course with the swelling ranks of independent voters, whose numbers are rising in line with a national trend and what some observers believe is no blip but instead a generational shift.

Lonna Atkeson, a professor of political science at The University of New Mexico, says several factors may be driving the increase in independent voters.

For one thing, there are just more voters than there were 20 years ago, and it is arguably easier to sign up nowadays. New Mexicans can register online or when they go to the driver’s license office.

Then there is the nature of politics today. The major parties are nominating candidates that polls indicate are polarizing figures, whether that is Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

And younger voters in particular are likely to see government as unresponsive, Atkeson adds.

“Young people aren’t as connected to parties,” she says.

The share of registered Republicans and registered Democrats has declined in roughly equal proportions during recent years, suggesting this is not a problem for just one party.

All of that can dampen voter turnout during the general elections, in Atkeson’s telling.

The primary election will decide many races in the deepest blue and deepest red parts of the state this year where the only candidates are members of the same party.

For example, there will likely be only one choice for sheriff on the general election ballot in 17 of the state’s 33 counties — including Santa Fe, where all the candidates are Democrats.

And five races for seats in the state House of Representatives will likely be decided in the primary, too. Another 29 seats of the 70 seats are uncontested.

Independent and write-in candidates could still file to get on the ballot in November. But the state has set a fairly high bar for independents to qualify.

The only option, then, can be to register as a member of a party.

Laura Atkins, a local resident, has worked at the polls on primary election days and recounts having to turn away voters because they were registered as independents.

“It disenfranchises people,” says Atkins, who sits on the board of the League of Women Voters of Santa Fe County.

Atkins has registered as a Democrat to participate in the primaries but says she does not feel for a moment like she belongs to a major political party.

Instead, to her, the closed primary system feels like a way of consolidating power in the political parties.

“It protects the power of the parties. It does not, in my view, protect the integrity of the election or do anything to further participation,” she says.

New Mexico has ranked as average, if not worse, for voter turnout when compared to other states.

Turnout among eligible voters during midterm years, like this one, recently has ranged from 35 percent to 45 percent.

Presidential election years have brought out New Mexicans in larger numbers. Sixty-three percent of those eligible cast ballots in 2016, for example. But these midterm elections include races such as governor, sheriff and magistrate judge that arguably have bigger effects on New Mexicans’ daily lives.

Still, New Mexico is partyoriented compared to some other states with closed primary elections.

Groups such as Open Primaries have pushed to change the elections process, but recent proposals have met with resistance at the Legislature.

State Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, a Democrat from Albuquerque, is blunt: Open primaries are unconstitutional.

The state cannot force political parties to accept voters, he argues, contending that would violate the principle of freedom of association.

But Ivey-Soto, who often works on election-related legislation, says the current system is unconstitutional by that same logic.

“We are telling the political parties who they may not associate with,” he says.

One option, Ivey-Soto says, is for the state to let parties choose which voters may cast ballots in their primary elections. In some other states, for example, a party can say it will allow independent voters but not voters registered with rival parties.

Even then, primaries might violate the state’s policy against using public funds for private organizations given that taxpayers cover the cost of the elections, but the elections are closed to members of nonprofit groups, he says.

California has taken a different tack and adopted a “top-two” primary, in which voters choose from all the candidates from all the parties. The two candidates who get the most votes appear on the general election ballot, turning the primary election into a first round of voting instead of a party nominating process. A bill to establish a similar system in New Mexico did not make it out of a single committee in the 2017 legislative session.

And critics argue that process may still leave voters with few choices.

Ivey-Soto says the solution might be to do away with primaries altogether and instead set requirements for candidates to get on the ballot through other means, such as circulating nominating petitions.

Changing anything about this system will require support from Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature — a place where there are no independents.