Senate panel postpones hearing on voting measure

SANTA FE — A sweeping elections bill designed to automate some voter registration and allow 16-year-olds to vote in local elections won’t get its first committee hearing until Wednesday — the halfway point of the session.

The proposal, Senate Bill 8, was initially set to be heard by the Senate Rules Committee on Monday, but it was postponed after a scheduling conflict, triggering some concern by supporters about the possibility of running out of time.

To reach Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s desk, the bill must clear two Senate committees, the full Senate and then navigate the House and its committees by Feb. 17, the end of the session.

Time “is always challenging in a 30-day session,” said Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, a Santa Fe Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill. “Having said that, this bill is a top priority.”

It’s appropriate for the bill to get a thorough vetting in the Senate Rules Committee, he said, but he is hoping for a quicker pace after that.

A hearing on the proposal was postponed after the chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, Democrat Daniel Ivey-Soto of Albuquerque, had a scheduling conflict and was absent while presenting a bill in another committee.

Republican committee members were also absent.

Lawmakers said they are preparing to consider amendments to the legislation — including a proposal by Sen. Katy Duhigg, an Albuquerque Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill, that would ensure a student identification card is acceptable for same-day voter registration.

That’s already the law, but a separate elections bill working its way through the Legislature, Senate Bill 6, calls for requiring a driver’s license or similar government ID.

Ivey-Soto said there’s plenty of time to hear Senate Bill 8 — the elections bill backed by Wirth, Duhigg and Lujan Grisham — and he expects a hearing and possibly a vote on it Wednesday.

“I don’t see any time crunch,” he said.

It’s routine, he said, for a committee’s schedule to change. A committee vote on one of his own bills, Ivey-Soto said, was postponed last week, creating Monday’s scheduling conflict.

More than a dozen supporters of Senate Bill 8, in any case, attended Monday’s meeting of the Senate Rules Committee.

In an interview, Sam OlikerFriedland, chief counsel at the Center for Secure Elections and Modern Elections in Washington, D.C., said the proposal has the potential to sharply increase voter registration in New Mexico, as “back end” automated systems have in six other states.

“New Mexico can be an example to the region and make sure its citizens have all the protections they need in the absence of federal action,” said Oliker-Friedland, who worked in the Department of Justice under the Obama and Trump administrations.

Senate Bill 8 would allow 16-year-olds to vote in local elections, establish a permanent absentee voter list and restore the voting rights of felons who aren’t incarcerated.

It also would make some changes intended to automate some voter registration. People who show a passport or provide other information proving their eligibility to vote would be automatically registered when they complete a transaction at the Motor Vehicle Division or similar state office.