Voters may have say on moving city election
Proposal would change cycle from March to November in odd-numbered years
Santa Fe city voters could decide this fall whether to move biennial municipal elections from March to November in odd-numbered years.
City Councilor Carol Romero-Wirth on Wednesday night introduced a resolution calling for a special election to be held concurrently with the Santa Fe County general election Nov. 6 to seek voter approval to amend the city charter to accommodate the shift in election dates.
The proposed ballot question, which would need approval of the City Council, aligns with the city’s plans to opt into a consolidated regular election cycle with
Santa Fe County — a move provided for in the Local Election Act, an overhaul of local election schedules approved by the state Legislature earlier this year.
One intent of the new law is to encourage greater turnout in local elections by bringing different election dates together.
City Clerk Yolanda Vigil said the resolution will be scheduled for possible approval at the council’s July 25 meeting.
The opt-in would require councilors to decide what to do with the municipal election scheduled for March 2020, when four of the eight city council seats and the municipal judgeship will be at issue.
State Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, an Albuquerque Democrat who co-sponsored the Local Election Act, said this week that the law affords councilors the option to either move the election up five months to November 2019 or back to November 2021.
The resolution was presaged by Mayor Alan Webber’s statement this week that he planned to eliminate the city clerk’s role in managing city elections. City elections would be managed by the Santa Fe County clerk under the consolidated election format.
“If you really believe you want a democratic process, to give the voters their say, then doing [elections] all at one time and having it on a cycle where everyone has the same electoral season is much more likely to produce engagement, voter turnout, campaigns that speak to the real issues,” Webber said this week.
Councilors on Wednesday approved Vigil’s new one-year contract, which includes a 2 percent pay raise. The one-year term would allow Webber to determine whether Vigil would be a “good fit” with the clerk’s new non-electoral job functions, the mayor said.