With just four days of early voting left before Election Day 2.0, about 32,000 Albuquerque voters have cast ballots in the city’s Dec. 9 runoff election, with Democrats turning out at significantly higher rates than Republicans.
Of the 31,926 ballots cast by late afternoon Tuesday, 18,132 came from early voting sites and 13,794 were absentee ballots. Democrats account for 55% of the total, Republicans 30%, and unaffiliated and minor party voters 15%, according to Bernalillo County Clerk data.
District 8 in the Northeast Heights and Foothills, a Republican-leaning area, is posting the strongest turnout at 11.49%, with 5,193 of its 45,169 registered voters casting ballots even without a council race on the ballot.
Turnout is lower in the two contested City Council districts, both on the Westside and both favoring Democrats in voter registration.
District 1, where Stephanie Telles faces Joshua Neal, sits at 9.56%, or 4,175 of 43,653 voters. District 3, the race between incumbent Klarissa Peña and Teresa Garcia, has the lowest turnout in the city at 4.07%, with 1,352 of 33,161 voters participating.
Turnout sits at 8.73%, well below November’s general election when just over 134,000 city voters cast a vote for mayor, but all 365,913 registered Albuquerque voters can still weigh in on the mayoral runoff between Mayor Tim Keller and former Sheriff Darren White.
How to vote
Early voting runs through Saturday, Dec. 6, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at 17 sites citywide, and same-day registration is available at all of them.
Voters who requested absentee ballots should hand-deliver them to any early voting site, any Election Day location, or an official drop box so they arrive before the 7 p.m. deadline on Election Day.
On Election Day, 50 polling sites will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., down from 74 in November.
Every vote counts
We get it: We know voting is a civic duty, but there are a lot of people and questions on our local ballot we don’t keep up with or even know, and we don’t want to make a bad decision.
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