Analysts predicted low voter turnout in today’s primary election, but this is really sad.
I’ve visited nine precincts today, and found disappointing results at all.
The worst was at Corbett Center at New Mexico State University. In precinct 54, three people voted by 1:15 p.m., out of 917 who are eligible. That’s 0.3 percent. Precinct 58 had one, just one, voter out of 657 who are eligible. That’s 0.2 percent.
The news was a bit better at Conlee Elementary School, where, in precinct 45, 20 out of 598 registered voters cast their votes as of 1 p.m. In precinct 46, it was 20 out of 419, and in precinct 47, it was 38 out of 604.
At Sierra Middle School, 17 out of 877 registered voters had cast votes by noon in precinct 34.
And at Highland Elementary School, 42 out of 1,108 had cast ballots in precinct 59 by 11:30 a.m. Some 21 out of 896 had cast ballots in precinct 61, and 18 out of 988 had cast ballots in precinct 105.
I’m still trying to find out exactly how many early votes were cast, but it was somewhere around 1 percent. And out of 623 absentee ballots mailed out, 264 have still not been returned, according to county spokesman Jess Williams.
There are about 78,000 people eligible to vote today in Doña Ana County. Those who were predicting 10 percent voter turnout for this election might have been overly optimistic.
I’ve heard reports of a few voters who showed up to the wrong voting sites, and one location that had voting machine problems, but, overall, there don’t seem to be that many problems.
I’ll have more as the day progresses.