Study shows 65% of New Mexico voters ‘very confident’ their vote counted
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – A look back at the 2022 election reveals that 65% of voters were “very confident” that their vote counted as intended in the general election. New study reveals 7%, or around 50,000 voters, were “not at all confident.”
The study comes from the University of New Mexico and was supported by the New Mexico Secretary of State. It’s an in-depth look at 2022 voter turnout and voter attitudes during the general election.
“The most important thing is that New Mexico has a system that is fundamentally working,” study author Lonna Rae Atkeson told KRQE. “[Officials] have, over the past decade and a half, committed to improving that system.”
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The report shows evidence that New Mexico is “solidly blue.” For years, more voters in New Mexico have registered as Democratic than Republican or another option. From the year 2000 to 2022, both Democratic registrations and Republican registrations have declined, while “other” and “decline-to-state” registrations have increased. Still, Democratic voters made up 44% of registered overs in 2022.
“Some people are very concerned about the two-party system, and I think that as the system ages and we are not realigning around particular issues or events, you just see this decline in party identification,” Atkeson said. But “because we have created more accessibility, we have put a lot more people into the voter file via the DMV – the opt-out and opt-in procedures there – and a lot of those people are sort of chronic non-voters.”
In other words, the rise in “decline-to-state” voters coincides with both a real feeling of wanting to leave the traditional parties behind as well as an overall increase in the number of voters who really never identified with a party in the first place.
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A chart from the report shows how voter registration has changed over time in New Mexico.
When it comes to voter confidence, New Mexico’s voters were more confident in state and county elections than in national elections. In 2022, 40% of New Mexico voters were “very confident” in the results of the national election, while 50% of voters were “very confident” in the state-level results. Despite this, only 17% of New Mexico voters were “not at all confident” in the results of the national election. Most New Mexico voters had at least some confidence in their elections.
But confidence varied with political party association. Republicans were, on average, less confident in their elections than Democratic voters, the report notes. Confidence also varied with voter race – 90% of white voters were very or somewhat confident that their ballot was properly counted, while only 75% of Hispanic voters were confident.
While noting progress New Mexico has made towards building access and confidence in elections, the study also makes a few recommendations to the state for further improvements.
“One of [the recommendations] is around getting information out to people about the privacy of their ballot. People are very uncertain about whether their ballot is private or whether it can be determined who they voted for,” Atkeson said. “No one can tell who you voted for, whether you vote by mail or you’re voting in person. The procedures and processes are set up to ensure that your vote is private and secret.”
