Fresh off across-the-board successes in the 2022 elections, which saw New Mexico Democrats retain control of both the governorship and the legislature, party leaders have introduced a new bill to broadly protect and expand voting rights in the state. State House Speaker Javier Martínez called the new measure a top priority, and with the support of other prominent Democratic officials such as Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, it's likely that this bill or similar legislation will soon become law.
The measure, known as the New Mexico Voting Rights Act, would enact several important voting reforms, including:
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Automatic voter registration at the state’s driver’s licensing agency, along with expanding voter registration opportunities at other state agencies.
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A "Native American Voting Rights Act" that guarantees access to polling places on tribal land, authorizes tribes to conduct community collection of mail ballots, and allows the use of official tribal buildings for voter registration addresses, since many residents living on remote reservations in the western U.S. lack traditional postal service and driver's licenses.
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Abolishing felony voter disenfranchisement for the roughly 11,000 people who are on parole or probation and providing voter registration opportunities when people are released from incarceration.
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An opt-in list for voters to permanently receive absentee ballots in all future elections.
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Requiring a minimum of two absentee ballot drop boxes in each county and allowing the secretary of state to authorize additional drop boxes.
Democrats enjoy wide majorities in both chambers, and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham supported the previous version of this bill, which her party attempted to pass last year. Although that effort ran out of time after Republicans filibustered it toward the end of the 2022 legislative session, that session was only 30 days long, while this year’s session will last 60 days, giving proponents more time to advance the latest proposal. Supporters also removed some of the more contentious components of the 2022 version, such as a provision lowering the voting age to 16 in municipal elections, in order to improve the odds of passage.
The bill shares much in common with similar legislation that Democrats recently introduced in Minnesota after they retook control of state government for the first time in nearly a decade and continues a pattern of Democrats seeking to expand voting rights in blue states as Republicans curtail them in red states.