Sandoval County Commission Certifies Municipal Elections

Serving as the election Canvassing Board on March 15, the Sandoval County Commission voted unanimously to certify the results of the 2024 municipal elections in Sandoval County that took place on March 5.

Rio Rancho, Bernalillo, Cuba and Jemez Springs all have opted out of the New Mexico Local Election Act, meaning municipal officer elections take place in March of every even-numbered year and are handled by the municipal clerk. If they opted into the LEA, elections would be held in November of every odd-numbered year and would be managed by the Sandoval County clerk, who is responsible for covering the costs.

The city of Rio Rancho will have a runoff election for District 1 and 6 city councilors since no candidate in the March 5 election received a majority of the votes cast, as required by the city’s charter.

Early voting for registered Rio Rancho residents in District 1 and 6 is available from March 27 to April 6. Election Day is April 9.

The March 5 Rio Rancho municipal election ended with incumbent Paul Wymer retaining his seat in District 4.

The other two districts on the ballot required runoffs.

District 1 candidates

• Jim Owen 398 votes (43%) in March 5 election
• Deborah Dapson 412 (44%)

District 6 candidates

• Edward Paulsgrove 379 (28%)
• Nicole List 579 (43%)

Rio Rancho City Clerk Rebecca Martinez said Rio Rancho is not eligible to opt into the LEA because the city requires a photo ID to vote.

“It’s a mixed bag. There’s people that are in support of it and there’s people that just don’t feel that they need to show ID,” Martinez said. “I’ve heard it in all of the 25 years that I’ve been running elections. So you know there are times even other elections across the state people must show their photo ID.”

Martinez presented a canvass report to the commission showing that of the 74,282 eligible voters in Sandoval County, only 5,139 voted, which is a voter turnout of 6.92%.

That’s down from a voter turnout of about 9% in 2020 and 9.9% in 2016 . The mayoral election in 2022 had a 14% turnout, and the 2018 election was 16%.

“There are many different things that we’ve tried to do over the years. I can tell you that historically, voter turnout is just simply low,” Martinez said. “Long ago in 2010, I was one of the proponents to bring voting convenience centers here. All of us know voting convenience centers today as voting locations where a voter can go to any single site within our jurisdiction and cast a ballot. Before that time, you were required as a voter to go to your precinct, and you could not go to any other voting location. That is one of the biggest changes that the election code has seen in recent history. That allows a voter to go to any voting location and have their particular ballot issued to them. Beyond that, we have expanded early voting. We have absentee voting. We now have same-day voter registration during early voting and Election Day. Really honestly, from where I sit and what I’ve done for so long, I cannot understand why the voter turnout is so low. I have a really hard time grappling with why turnout is so low.”