Voter turnout appears to be pretty good in the Las Cruces area. I’ve visited 10 precincts so far on the east and south sides of the city. I’ve found steady streams of voters and, in some instances, lines of 15-20 people.
The lines are moving quickly. Voters I spoke with reported only having to wait in line a few moments.
There are three precincts at Highland Elementary School off U.S. Highway 70. At 10:10 a.m., 72 of 1,170 registered voters had voted at Precinct 61. In Precinct 59, 118 of 1,478 had cast votes, and in Precinct 105, 60 of a possible 1,364 had voted.
At Camino Real Middle School on Roadrunner Parkway, there are two precincts. In Precinct 62, 104 had cast votes out of a possible 1,472 by 10:25 a.m. In Precinct 102, 225 out of more than 1,800 had voted.
At Desert Hills Elementary School on Roadrunner Parkway, there are three precincts. In Precinct 67, 122 of 1,538 registered voters had voted by 10:40 a.m. In Precinct 103, 165 of 1,663 had voted, and in Precinct 106, 138 of 1,220 had voted.
At New Mexico State University, where I am reporting from now, turnout was much lower, but that’s not unusual. In Precinct 54, 49 of 1,407 registered voters had cast votes by 11 a.m. In Precinct 58, only 25 of 1,925 had voted.
Though it is bad news that young people are continuing their trend of not voting, I also ran into a lot of good news. In addition to fast-moving lines, voters reported finding the process easy. Poll workers reported very little use of provisional ballots.
The biggest complaint I found came from poll workers who were too busy to take breaks.
There was a minor problem at Precinct 105. A piece of equipment in one of the machines was loaded incorrectly, and poll workers spoiled eight ballots on the first voter before they got the machine working properly.
Once they had it working, there were no additional problems.
I’m off to check on more precincts on the city’s west and north sides.