Las Cruces to consider “ranked-choice” voting

The City of Las Cruces could soon consider switching to a “ranked-choice” voting system.

“Ranked-choice allows people to rank their candidates,” said Doña Ana County Clerk Scott Krahling.

With a traditional ballot (left), voters can only choose one candidate for each position. This creates the possibility for a run-off election if two candidates tie. In a ranked-choice ballot (right) voters rank each candidate from their most favored to least favored.

“It changes the whole dynamics,” Krahling said. “It makes the whole process more positive. It gives the voters more power.”

A voter’s top choice might not always win an election. In a ranked-choice system, that voter’s second choice will get an additional vote if their top candidate is eliminated.

“You eliminate the candidate who came in last and then you have an instant run-off with the remaining candidates,” Krahling said. “All the voters who voted for the candidate who was removed because they came in last, their second choices get applied to the totals.”

The Las Cruces City Council must first pass an ordinance before ranked-choice voting becomes the new practice. Santa Fe was the first city in New Mexico to implement it.

Krahling told ABC-7 the change could come to Las Cruces as soon as November 2019.

“We have everything that we need right now in order to do it,” Krahling said. “The state issued tabulators, a program to be able to handle rank-choice voting, so everything is programmable. The systems that print the ballots are all ready to go. We’re ready to go.”