Rick Lass News Today

The Silver City Town Council wasn’t as eager as the governing bodies in the Mining District to give its endorsement to proposed state legislation that would give local governments the authority to produce and sell their own power — at least not without more information about the bill. Councilors voted unanimously Tuesday evening to remove a resolution from the agenda that would have given the town’s support to the Local …

Posted on On Sunday, May 9, the four candidates for the special U.S. House election, 1st district, debated each other. They are a Democrat, a Republican, a Libertarian, and an independent. The debate was sponsored by the Albuquerque Journal, TV station KOAT, and radio station KKOB. Thanks to Rick Lass for this news.

Posted on According to this story, an individual voter in New Mexico has filed a lawsuit in state court, alleging that the party is not a major party. The party polled 7.08% in November 2020 for Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals. The candidate, Stephen Curtis, received 62,547 votes. The law says a major party is one in which “any candidate” polled as much as 5% of the total vote cast in the state for President or Governor. In 2020 the total presidential vote was 923,965. Five percent...

Posted on On March 8, the New Mexico Senate Rules Committee voted on SJR 22, a proposed constitutional amendment. If the legislature had passed it, then the voters would have been asked in November 2022 whether to alter the state constitution to provide for ranked choice voting for all elections, partisan and non-partisan. But the measure lost on a tie vote. It is sponsored by State Senator Bill Tallman (D-Albuquerque). Thanks to Rick Lass for this news.

* * * Note: While the exact voting system used is not known by this author, it appears that the state executive board seats were elected in multiple winner election districts, of two to three names per district. The ideal way, for the lowest Droop Quota threshold for each of seven seats, is for all seven seats to be elected at-large simultaneously, with a threshold of 1/8th (or 12.5%) plus one vote for each name. Droop Quota thresholds for two and three winner election districts could have be...