COMMENTARY:
Voter turnout is on the rise in Doña Ana County. In the 2026 primary, nearly 25,000 votes were cast, up from just under 15,000 in 2024, and roughly the same in 2022. It's rare for a midterm primary to outpace turnout from a presidential election year. This wasn't an accident. It was the result of two structural changes to how New Mexicans vote, paired with a deliberate effort by The League of Women Voters of Southern New Mexico (LWVSNM), a local organization, to make sure voters knew about them.
So, what changed? Two things. In 2024, the state introduced permanent absentee status: voters can now ask to be added to a list that automatically mails them a ballot for every election, rather than requesting one anew every cycle. In 2026, the state opened its primaries: unaffiliated and independent voters, previously shut out of primary elections entirely, can now choose to vote in either major party's primary.
The results show up clearly in the data. The rise in turnout was countywide. Rural communities like Chaparral and Sunland Park saw gains alongside more populous areas. Two increases stand out in particular: the number of unaffiliated voters casting ballots rose sharply, and absentee ballot use climbed countywide, especially in rural areas farthest from polling places.
These reforms are doing something different from a typical get-
out-the-vote campaign. GOTV efforts work by persuading people who are already eligible and able to vote, giving them a reason to show up, or information about the candidates. The structural changes work earlier in the process: they remove the barriers that kept eligible people from voting in the first place.
Permanent absentee status erases the burden of repeat paperwork for voters who live far from a polling place. Open primaries give unaffiliated voters, who make up a growing share of the electorate, a real reason to participate instead of sitting out the only competitive races on the ballot. One approach persuades existing voters; the other creates room for new ones.
That distinction matters most for the voters our system tends to overlook. Rural voters are often the last to hear from campaigns and the first to be left off the map when it comes to outreach. Permanent absentee status hands them a permanent fix to a persistent problem. Unaffiliated voters, meanwhile, have long been asked to choose between candidates chosen by parties they don't belong to. Open primaries let them weigh in without forcing them to register with a party first.
But none of this works if voters don't know the rules have changed. That's where local organizations came in. The LWVSNM ran targeted outreach in rural parts of the county to explain permanent absentee status to voters who might otherwise never have heard of it. Even without the budget of the statewide absentee campaign that drove turnout in 2020, these efforts moved the Doña Ana County needle: in 2026 rural absentee use rose steadily compared to 2022 and 2024.
The lesson is straightforward. Structural reforms create the potential for higher turnout, but it takes substantial, funded outreach to convert that potential into actual votes. LWVSNM is currently raising funds to extend the increase in rural voter turnout in the primaries to all of DAC for the general election. The strategy is to launch a social media and billboard campaign to make voters aware of when absentee ballot applications can be obtained online and to encourage voters to vote from home using absentee ballots. People who want to support that initiative can make an online donation at Donate – LWVSNM or can mail a donation to LWVSNM, PO Box 15142, Las Cruces, NM 88004.
As other states move to tighten voting rules, New Mexico has gone the other way by expanding access for the voters most often left out. Sustaining that progress into the general election means giving the organizations doing this work the resources to reach more of the voters who still don't know their options have changed. That's an investment worth making, and one worth supporting.
Dr. Daniel Gomez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, Public Law and Administration ate NMSU.
Dr. Gomez's opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of KRWG Public Media or NMSU.