Low turnout in New Mexico Primary Elections and a lawsuit have people talking about opening up the state’s primaries to independent voters.
New Mexico’s Democratic Chair supports the change….but the Republican chair is opposed.
With only 20 percent of voters turning out in the last primary election, there are calls for opening up the state’s closed primary to include independent voters.
We spoke last week with David Crum, an Albuquerque lawyer fighting to open up the primary elections to independent voters. He says many of the state’s offices are decided in the primary, because some candidates may not have an opponent in November from the other party.
“You are really excluding a huge portion of not only registered voters, but tax-paying voters. It’s the taxpayers that fund these elections, they are fairly expensive and the idea that they have no real say in that is really astounding,” says Crum.
According to the Secretary of State, as of January, 47 percent of voters were registered as Democrats and 31 percent were registered as Republicans. However, 19 percent of voters were registered as independents…officially known as, “Declined to State.”
With nearly 240,000 independents out of nearly 1.3 million registered voters, it is becoming harder to ignore the growing independent voice in a closed primary election.
Earlier this month two Democratic lawmakers announced that they would work on legislation to open the closed primary elections. State Senator Bill O’Neill (Dist. 13) and if re-elected state representative Emily Kane (Dist. 15) plan to work to include “Declined to State” voters in the primary elections.
And earlier this month, Republican Governor Susanna Martinez told the Albuquerque Journal that she would support legislation allowing independents to cast their vote in primary elections.
With the possible future of such legislation we talked to the chairmen of New Mexico’s largest political parties to find out how they felt about opening up the primaries.
New Mexico Democratic Party Chair Sam Bregman says if no action is taken during the next legislative session, the party will probably discuss this issue. He also says opening the primary election is also an opportunity to attract young people to the party.
“If that legislation is not successful, then I think it is something that will generate a debate within the Democratic Party. I am someone on a personal level, who thinks we should do everything we can do get more people participating. I want young people to take vote in our primaries, because if they get engaged I think they are going to see what Democrats stand for, they are going to hear our message, and they are going to be life-long Democrats at the end of the day,” says Bregman.
New Mexico Republican Party Chair John Billingsley says that even though Governor Martinez supports opening up the primary election to, “Declined to State,” voters he does not. He says it’s not uncommon for Republicans to disagree on issues like this. He says the current system works just fine.
“I think everyone is pretty satisfied with the situation the way it is. It has not disenfranchised anyone in the state that I’m aware of from voting at all for a final candidate. The only situation there is just to make sure that everybody has a vote in that general (election), because that after all is important, that is where the election is held,” says Billingsley.
Independent voters wanting to be included in future primary elections will be watching for the outcome of this lawsuit and possible legislation.
One thing all voters can count on is that both major parties in New Mexico will continue to recruit support for their candidates for this year’s general election and for 2016.