Saturday, March 20, 2010

Municipal Election Cost $8.03 Per Vote

By Rosalie Rayburn
Journal Staff Writer
          Democracy is an expensive activity in Rio Rancho.
        Preliminary estimates from the City Clerk's Office show the cost to run the recent municipal election worked out to $8.03 per vote.
        Just 12.2 percent of the city's 48,141 registered voters cast ballots in the election to pick the mayor, two city councilors and municipal judge.
        Invoices for things such as printing, postage and payment for election workers to administer ballots for those 5,842 people who voted, amounted to about $47,000, City Clerk Roman Montoya said.
        Montoya was still waiting for invoices from a couple of sources late this week, but he estimated the final tally would leave the per-vote cost in the $8 to $9 range.
        And that's not the end of it. The city must hold a runoff election April 13 for the municipal judge position.
        City rules require a runoff between the top two vote-getters in races where no one receives 50 percent of the votes. None of the four candidates in the judge's race reached that threshold.
        Montoya expects the runoff to cost about the same or a little less than the regular municipal election.
        Money to pay election costs comes out of the city's general fund, which means it comes from taxpayers through property taxes, gross receipts taxes on purchases, franchise fees and the like.
        Turnout at this month's municipal election was lower than recent ones that also involved a mayoral race.
        Figures provided by the City Clerk's Office show turnout in the 2006 municipal election was 18.15 percent, and in 2008 it was 19.94 percent. There were mayor's races in both those years.
        This year's turnout also was lower than other New Mexico communities that were picking a mayor.
        Most notably, the town of Bernalillo had a 43 percent voter turnout.
        "This was the most voters I've ever seen," Town Clerk Ida Fierro said immediately after the election.
        Voters rejected incumbent Mayor Patricia Chávez, whose tenure had been roiled by controversy over water quality and questionable credit card purchases by the former town manager, in favor of challenger Jack Torres.
        Among cities that had mayoral contests, Santa Fe's turnout was 16.1 percent, while Roswell's was about 22 percent.
        Roswell's was lower than the usual 25 percent to 30 percent voter turnout for a mayoral race, City Clerk Dave Kunko said.
        The village of Corrales saw a 22 percent voter turnout, according to Mayor Phil Gasteyer, who was re-elected.
       

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