{"id":2474,"date":"2007-11-06T16:19:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-06T22:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/11\/at-this-point-its-difficult-to-determine-voter-turnout\/"},"modified":"2007-11-06T16:19:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-06T22:19:00","slug":"at-this-point-its-difficult-to-determine-voter-turnout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/11\/at-this-point-its-difficult-to-determine-voter-turnout\/","title":{"rendered":"At this point, it’s difficult to determine voter turnout"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s difficult to determine at this point how voter turnout in today\u2019s Las Cruces municipal election<\/a> compares to the 2003 election, the last time the same offices were up for grabs. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

If my small sample of polling places is any indication, the city isn\u2019t on track to match the turnout from 2003, the last time the mayor\u2019s office, presiding municipal judgeship and city council districts 1, 2 and 4 were up for grabs. Voter turnout that year was 29 percent \u2013 10,753 out of 36,648 registered voters.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

But I\u2019m not going to predict that voter turnout will be lower. About 2,400 people voted early this year, compared to 1,581 in 2003. There are about 47,000 registered voters today.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

At the polling places I visited, voter turnout appeared to be on track to reach anywhere between 15 and 25 percent, which is still pretty good for a municipal election even if it\u2019s lower than 2003.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

For example, at Las Cruces<\/st1:placename> High School<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place> in District 2, there had been 115 voters out of a possible 1,593 as of 12:20 p.m. And at Lynn<\/st1:placename> Middle School<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> in District 3, there were 115 voters out of a possible 1,650 at 12:50 p.m.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

At Sierra<\/st1:placename> Middle School<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place> in District 3, there were 137 voters out of a possible 1,722 at 1 p.m. \u2013 the halfway point in the day \u2013 and poll workers said they were pleasantly surprised by the turnout.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

At Camino<\/st1:placename> Real<\/st1:placename> Middle School<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place> in District 6, 379 out of a possible 3,450 people had voted at 1:10 p.m. And at Highland<\/st1:placetype> Elementary School<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place> in District 5, 294 out of a possible 3,009 people had voted at 1:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

There have been some problems. The Las Cruces Sun-News<\/a> is reporting that, by 10 a.m., more than 1,000 people had called the clerk\u2019s office trying to find their polling places. Some of those are people whose polling places are different than they are in state and county elections. Those people didn\u2019t check before they showed up to vote.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

But others, the Sun-News is reporting, include people who live outside the city limits and others who simply don\u2019t know where they\u2019re supposed to vote. I saw two such people turned away at polling places I visited. That could be an indication that they\u2019re inexperienced voters, and conventional wisdom would suggest that such people are voting out of a desire to oust incumbents.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

However, there\u2019s another possibility: People have become accustomed, under the relatively new state law, to voting on provisional ballots when they don\u2019t show up at the right polling place. There are no provisionals in municipal elections, so voters are simply being redirected to other polling places. That may explain some of the confusion.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

A few thoughts:<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u2022 I\u2019m told by reliable sources that Nathan Small\u2019s<\/a> supporters are turning out in large numbers in the District 4 race, and it\u2019s not clear whether supporters of Isaac Chavez<\/a> and Steve Monta\u00f1o<\/a> are doing the same. Keep in mind that Small had a lot of financial support from Conservation Voters of New Mexico<\/a>, whose educational arm also sent out targeted mailings and placed phone calls encouraging people who support their issues to vote.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u2022 The highest voter turnout I came across was in the district of Ken Miyagishima<\/a> \u2013 District 6. I would assume that many of those voters support Miyagishima\u2019s bid to unseat Bill Mattiace<\/a> as mayor.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u2022 Voter turnout appears to also be good in districts 3 and 5, even though those voters don\u2019t get to pick a new councilor. That means they\u2019re showing up to vote for mayor \u2013 and many are voting on the growth issue. In District 5 and 6, that\u2019s a no-brainer. That\u2019s where the growth is occurring. In the inner-city District 3, it also makes sense. Traffic problems there have increased significantly as a result of the East Mesa<\/st1:place> growth.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u2022 Early voting turnout was highest among voters living in districts 5 and 6 on the East Mesa<\/st1:place>. People concerned about the city\u2019s growth are certainly galvanized. We\u2019ll know in a few hours how much they influenced the election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s difficult to determine at this point how voter turnout in today\u2019s Las Cruces municipal election compares to the 2003 election, the last time the same offices were up for grabs. If my small sample of polling places is any indication, the city isn\u2019t on track to match the turnout from 2003, the last time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}