COMMENTARY: Tuesday’s elections in New Mexico proved that, in spite of all our dysfunction, society is still able to implement structural reform that supports democracy and benefits people.
We’ve made several changes in New Mexico since the last election. Most notable was the consolidation of the many tiny, local elections that had long flown under the radar into one, larger, nonpartisan election held every other November. That was intended to make it easier for people to keep up and participate.
Other changes were the allowing of same-day registration during the early voting period across the state and, in Las Cruces, the use of ranked-choice voting, in which voters could rank all candidates in a race by preference instead of picking just one.
Government at the local, county and state levels worked together to successfully implement the changes. As intended, it was easier for people to vote, and more did.
Just over 10,000 people voted in the last mayoral race in Las Cruces in 2015. In this year’s election, just under 14,000 people voted in the mayor’s race. The spike in turnout was even higher for less visible ballot items like seats on the regional soil and water conservation district board and a bond for Doña Ana Community College.
Also, naysayers were proven wrong: Many school districts opposed consolidating elections because they knew how to control the electorate in less-visible contests. They feared greater turnout would kill their ability to fund infrastructure through property taxes and actively lobbied against consolidating elections. But the Las Cruces Public Schools easily won approval to continue a property tax on Tuesday. Fears about giving people a greater voice in school district funding were, predictably, unfounded.
As if the benefits to voters weren’t enough, consolidating elections lets government operate more efficiently and waste fewer tax dollars. That’s another win for all of us.
Ranked-choice voting was similarly awesome. I’ve long detested the two-party system that dominates politics in the United States. Thinking through my frustration has helped me understand how important systems are in shaping societal attitudes. We fit into the containers we create. So when the choice on a ballot is one or another, we simplify our thinking into black and white, good and evil, and most of us gather into one or the other group.
When I had to rank 10 mayoral candidates from first to last on Tuesday, I found myself considering them in a more nuanced way, and also thinking strategically about how my rankings could help support certain candidates or take down others.
We need more nuance in politics in the United States. Any change that encourages it is positive.
The Las Cruces mayoral race also stayed more positive than other recent contests. Candidates needed each others’ supporters on second or successive ballots, so they played nicer. We need more of that as well. I’m happy that Las Cruces joined Santa Fe and about 20 other cities nationwide in using ranked-choice voting.
Also, a couple thousand folks statewide registered to vote and voted at the same time under another change in state law. Guess what? The sky didn’t fall. Quite the opposite: For those people, participating in democracy was more convenient.
Voter engagement and turnout weren’t stellar in this election. But they improved. Creating a system that better encourages participation led to higher participation. Systemic change mattered. Over time that change will help enable the growth of a stronger culture of voting and participation in democracy.
That reminds me of what I observed happen on an infrastructure level when Las Cruces redesigned its downtown. Before we had a massive plaza, it was difficult to gather hundreds or thousands of people for a rally, protest or vigil anywhere outdoors in the city. Immediately after Las Cruces built a space for such gatherings, people filled it for a Christmas event and then the 2017 women’s march. It’s filled up many times since. Infrastructure that allows higher participation actually encourages and helps lead to higher participation.
We’re in a fight for democracy in the United States. It took a lot of work over several years to enact complex election reform in Las Cruces and New Mexico, but we did it. It’s paying off, and it’s important we keep going. There are so many other broken or mediocre systems we need to improve.
Our education system is failing our children, for example. As a parent who’s active in public schools, I’m confident in saying all our funding increases and tweaks to the current system haven’t created positive structural change. Adding a few days to the school year and increasing funding won’t be a “moonshot,” either. We need to re-vision our entire public education system from top to bottom, thinking creatively and boldly like we have with our election system.
A few other examples: We need to rethink how counties are structured in New Mexico — with elected county commissions and separate elected officials like sheriffs who don’t control their own budgets. The current system encourages infighting and waste. We also need to reform our ineffective Public Regulation Commission and ill-equipped state Legislature.
We need to dismantle systems that are structurally racist or discriminatory in other ways, such as those that benefit folks in cities but are useless to people in rural areas. We need to replace them with systems that aim to live up to the promise of New Mexico’s cultural values and that take advantage of the technology of the 21st Century to reach and help people.
Our government is still largely structured and operating as though we’re living in the 20th Century. To keep up with the changes around us in technology, business, culture and other areas, and to implement and defend a more robust democracy, government must adapt.
Following Tuesday’s elections, I’m confident that we in New Mexico have the ability to dream big, think outside the box, diligently hash out important details, and invent new systems that better serve people. Let’s build on the momentum created by election reform and keep going.
The work isn’t sexy. It won’t do much to help policymakers win re-election. But it’s exactly the sort of effort we need to dig out of the mess that is the society that’s crumbling around us.