A local school board in New Mexico had the ultimate low turnout…three candidates were on the ballot, to fill three positions. No candidate received even one vote. Zero voters showed up. See this story. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
A local school board in New Mexico had the ultimate low turnout…three candidates were on the ballot, to fill three positions. No candidate received even one vote. Zero voters showed up. See this story. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
It’s amazing that none of the candidates even voted for themselves. Why even apply for a job, then not vote for yourself. They should pick 3 new candidates.
Did ALL of the voters get taken to Mars ???
Did they all freeze to death ???
ONE election per year — when it is a bit warm.
ALL paper mail ballots.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
Leave the positions vacant! Anarchy!
The news story makes it appear that New Mexico law is vague (at best) about what counties are supposed to do when a local election is uncontested. Local officials shouldn’t have that kind of discretion. Either there is no election, or they open all the polling places. In this case, it appears that some polls were open but others were not.
Actually, the statute is quite clear (NM Stat ยง 1-22-6).
In the event that there are no bond issues, and all candidates are unopposed, only one polling location is used. The county clerk, who administers the school election, may choose either to use her office, or have one polling place in the school district.
Chaves County has 4 school districts, but 87% of the students are in Roswell. Two of the smaller districts had contested elections, so they had a polling place. And in Roswell, they had “convenience centers”, where any voter could vote. It was simply a matter of driving 26 miles, and you could go to any of 8 place in Roswell.
There was also early voting, but again someone had to drive to Roswell.
What wasn’t thought out in the law, was when the school district in question was quite distant from the county seat. Perhaps another problem was that the county was conducting the election for the school district, even though it wasn’t a county election. If the school district were conducting the election, they might have contracted with the county, but would have made sure there was a polling place.
Thank you for the clarification. In California, city clerks can run their own city elections (rather than having them run by the county), but schools and other districts cannot. The thinking is that school districts, water districts, etc., don’t have an official analogous to the city clerk, who is legally empowered to conduct elections.