Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Based on the number of ballots returned, Quay County’s first-ever mail-in election is a success, with turnout at least three to five times higher than usual.
Whether that translates to success for the Tucumcari school district’s efforts to renew a two-mill property tax won’t be known until the evening of Feb. 5, when the results are tabulated.
Quay County Clerk Ellen White said 1,054 ballots had been returned as of Friday afternoon after initially being mailed to voters Jan. 8. Considering previous Tucumcari school-board elections had counted a total of just 200 to 300 ballots, White said turnout for this election was “incredibly high.”
White estimates 4,400 people are registered to vote in Quay County. That means 24 percent of the voters had cast a ballot with almost two weeks before the Feb. 5 election.
The Local Election Act, passed into law by the New Mexico Legislature last year, consolidated nonpartisan elections and prompted Quay County’s inaugural mail-in election for the two-mill, which is the only issue on the ballot.
“The reason this law went into effect was to increase turnout where the turnout for elections was very small and taxes were being passed where a majority of the public did not vote,” White said. “That was the goal, and that part of it was a success.”
White said 697 ballots as of Friday were undeliverable — about 16 percent of the total. She said mail-in elections in other counties across the state had reported a 25 percent non-delivery rate.
“We’re considerably under that,” she said.
She said her office also had received “very few” phone calls from voters with questions about the ballot.
“That also surprised me,” White said. “But I think we did a really good job informing voters they had a piece of mail coming.”
White said members of the voter-precinct board will come to her office starting Friday to examine the ballots. Results should be known by the early evening of Election Day, Feb. 5.
White said her office at 300 S. Third St. in Tucumcari will accept ballots from voters until 7 p.m. Feb. 5.
“I recommend that if they want their ballot counted and they haven’t got in the mail by next Friday (Feb. 1), they’d better walk it in,” she said.
The school district, which is covering the estimated $5,500 cost of the election, states the two-mill property tax generates about $220,000 a year.
The tax can be used for maintaining or remodeling buildings, buying activity vehicles, purchasing computers and software, improving school grounds and installing technology improvements.
The two-mill question is a renewal of a $2 tax per $1,000 of property value. It would cover the tax years of 2019 through 2024.
Tucumcari schools superintendent Aaron McKinney has said the two-mill is vital for the district.
“It helps keep us afloat,” he said. “We can’t do without it.”