Doa Ana County residents divided on “partisan” straight-ticket voting

In a 4-1 vote, Doña Ana County commissioners passed a resolution opposing New Mexico’s move to straight-party voting.

“At a time in our country when we are becoming more and more divided, it is important that we don’t become so loyal to the political parties that we forget our neighbors and our friends,” said Chairman Ben Rawson, who proposed the resolution.

In late August, New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver announced she was formatting the ballots for the November election to include an option where voters can choose to vote for all one party, up and down the ballot in New Mexico.

Her decision attracted criticism on Tuesday at the special county commission meeting.

“I’ve always been a Republican,” said county resident Wyatt Bertsch. “But, I am not a straight-ticket voter. I wouldn’t want to be one, because one party does not have the monopoly on good ideas.”

“Over the course of the years, I have crossed party lines in numerous elections based on the merit of the candidate running,” said Carl Topley, who first registered to vote in 1979. “A straight-ticket ballot discourages voters from becoming engaged in the process.”

Commissioner Billy Garrett, representing district one, was the only member of the commission in favor of straight-ticket voting.

“We have a history of figuring out how to make sure that people don’t vote unless they meet our standard of how we should vote,” Garrett said, adding “I believe that people should be informed, but how do you test that?”

Other county residents agreed, saying the option to vote for one political party helps New Mexico residents who don’t have the resources to research each candidate.

“Straight-ticket party voting improves voter access,” said Lucas Herndon, who later asked, “Why do the people who don’t want it have more of a voice and more value than those who do want to use it?”

“We want turnout to increase,” said Mary Ann Hendrickson. She later added, “The people most negatively affected by removing straight-ticket voting are people that are busy, they’re working people, they’re rural people, people with limited access to information because we have very poor communication infrastructure in the county.”

A representative from libertarian Gary Johnson’s campaign for U.S. Senate told ABC-7 that the former governor – who announced his candidacy in mid-August – feels directly targeted.

“It makes no sense,” said Joe Hunter, a spokesman for the campaign. “It’s a fairly obvious attempt to hurt our campaign.”

The New Mexico Supreme Court must now decide whether the Secretary of State to provide the option on the ballot. At least seven other counties have held meetings opposing the decision, Rawson said.

“It is not clear what authority a county commission has,” said County Manager Fernando Macias. “So, can this body take action? Yes, but the Supreme Court will probably be addressing all of the issues, including from my perspective, whether the secretary of state only has control over the state portion or the statewide candidates and whether each individual county then has unilateral control over the ballot as it applies to county races.”

A spokesman for the secretary of state’s office didn’t immediately return ABC-7 calls for comment.