By Mike Easterling from Santa Fe New Mexican
Liz Penniman said she’s been voting on Election Day since she moved to New Mexico three years ago.
“It’s just to have the feeling of voting with everybody,” she said. “It just feels right.”
She was one of many people who cast ballots Tuesday at St. John’s United Methodist Church on Old Pecos Trail.
Traffic was brisk at the east-side site, but the lines were short Tuesday morning as Election Day arrived and voters headed out to cast their ballots.
“I didn’t wait 10 seconds,” said Carver Busch, who added he always checks the wait times online before he heads to a polling site.
Busch said he always waits to vote until Election Day because he doesn’t care for early voting.
“I think there’s a sense of tradition and gravitas to it,” he said.
He noted a long tradition in his family of keeping their choices to themselves.
“In my grandparents’ generation, people took the secret ballot seriously,” he said. “My grandparents didn’t even tell each other how they voted. If we had a little more of that, there would be a lot less conflict.”
Julia Roberts said she never votes early. She thinks it’s important to keep her options open as long as possible. “It’s like naming a baby before it’s born.”
Roberts pointed to the numerous political developments that have taken place just over the last week and said there might be many folks who voted early who would have changed their mind if they had waited until Election Day.
“Things happen; the world changes,” she said.
Not so fast
Voters encountered a different situation a couple of hours later at the La Farge Branch of the Santa Fe Public Library. A line of about three dozen voters stretched out the door and into the parking lot during the lunchtime hour, though it appeared to be moving relatively quickly.
One library patron, Quintan Joseph, said he had arrived at the building with the intention of casting his vote. But he got sidetracked by the library’s inventory and wound up carting out a backpack full of borrowed books he planned to haul home before returning to vote, he said with a smile.
Joseph said he, too, makes a point of always voting on Election Day instead of voting early. He was motivated to vote this year by the state of the economy.
“The higher cost of everything — and I don’t know what can be done, frankly,” he said. “I think it’s the corporations. They’re so greedy.”
Registered as an independent — what is called “decline to state” a party in New Mexico — he hadn’t voted in a primary election until recently, when New Mexico adopted a more open primary system.
“I was shut out by a lot of those,” he said. “I took a stand because I didn’t feel like either party was addressing my needs. I went independent, and I had to pay the price.”
Jill Van der Schaaf said she waited 30 minutes to cast her ballot at La Farge, but the wait didn’t inconvenience her.
She was motivated largely by issues at the federal level this year.
“Those are pretty important, given the recent trajectory,” she said.
She said she takes her responsibility to vote more seriously than she used to.
“I guess I’ve learned the importance of it as I’ve gotten older,” she said.
‘Values and faith’
One young New Mexican at La Farge said she already has grasped the lesson of the importance of voting. Alessandra Seawright, a 10th grade home school student, was joined by her mother, Alessa Seawright and Tish Trujillo in campaigning for a handful of Republican candidates.
The members of the trio were holding signs for Gregg Hull, the GOP nominee for governor; state Rep. Martin Zamora, the Republican nominee for the state’s 3rd Congressional District seat; and Victoria Garcia, the party’s nominee for the District 48 seat in the state House of Representatives.
Allesandra Seawright said it was her first time to campaign for any candidate.
“I think these people stand up for my values and faith,” she said. “The only school solution for me was home schooling because public schools don’t represent or teach my values.”
She said she hopes to start a local chapter of Turning Point USA, the conservative nonprofit organization cofounded by the late Charlie Kirk.
“He completely changed my life,” Allesandra Seawright said. “He showed me I authentically need to be myself, and I’m not going to censor that anymore.”
Her mother noted how challenging it has been to get the organization started in Santa Fe.
“It’s been a rough road,” she said.
‘It’s the deadline’
By early afternoon Tuesday, the parking lot at the Southside Branch of the Santa Fe Public Library on Jaguar Drive had an overflowing parking lot, with many voters parking along the street. But inside the building, voters were moving through the process quickly, and the line was short.
Among the voters was Krystal Hendricks, who breezed through the process in only five minutes. She waits until Election Day to vote because “it’s the deadline — you have to get it done,” she said sheepishly, acknowledging she often is a procrastinator when it comes to casting a ballot.
That didn’t mean Hendricks didn’t feel strongly about some of the issues on the ballot. She said she was highly motivated to support many of the city, county and state bond issues because she has a disabled child, and she often finds infrastructure in New Mexico lacking — including cracked or crumbling sidewalks that make it difficult to push a child in a stroller.
She was less sure about the candidates, even after voting.
“I don’t know a lot about the folks who are actually running, she said, though she added that she was supportive of candidates who, like her, are concerned about affordability.
Charles Julien also described himself as a procrastinator but said voting is very important to him, something he learned from his father, a native of Cuba who came to the United States during the Bay of Pigs era.
“He was all about the [voting] process in the U.S. because of where he came from,” Julien said. “He kind of instilled that in me. … He taught me it’s one place you can make a difference as a citizen.”
‘Turnout is high’
One of the leaders of a nonpartisan organization that observes elections in the state and reports on its findings, Observe New Mexico Elections, said Tuesday afternoon said the information she was receiving indicated polls were seeing lots of voters all over the state.
“Turnout is high, which is very exciting,” Carmen López said.
According to data released by the Secretary of State’s Office at 5 p.m., 672,450 people had voted statewide, about 46% of the electorate. In Santa Fe County, just under 66,800 people had voted, about 56% of those registered.
López said Observe New Mexico Elections — which began operating in the state in 2024 and is affiliated with The Carter Center, an organization founded by former President Jimmy Carter and first lady Rosalynn Carter that works to advance democracy around the world — had at least 255 observers stationed at polls in every county in the state Tuesday.
López said the only issues that observers had reported as of late Tuesday afternoon were some problems with same-day registrations at the poll at San Ildefonso Pueblo in Santa Fe County and some long lines for voters at three locations in Bernalillo County. She noted the same-day registration issues may have been resolved later in the day.
López said she was happy to see good weather across the state on Election Day and hoped it led to more people going to the polls. She noted the challenge that folks in many New Mexico counties — such as San Juan, Taos, Catron and Rio Arriba — might face in reaching the polls after recent flooding in those locales. But she praised the work of poll workers in accommodating voters across the state, especially those in Otero County, where she said turnout was much higher than anticipated.
“They’ve worked very hard to give voters privacy,” she said.
López said she was impressed by the resolve displayed by poll workers in other counties affected by flooding to simply assure their polling places were open.
“Poll workers have been really creative in these elections,” she said. “They’re doing everything they can to take care of voters.”
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