Voters fill out their ballots at the Doña Ana Community College East Mesa Campus in Las Cruces on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024. (Photo by Leah Romero / Source NM)
The results of the 2024 general elections are now official, after a board made up of the New Mexico governor, secretary of state and chief Supreme Court justice signed off on the results Tuesday .
The trio met for what’s called the State Canvassing Board, certifying results for races up and down the ballot. The board affirmed that 928,290 voters cast ballots this election, which amounts to 67.13% of total registered voters.
Members also noted that more than 8,000 voters cast ballots provisionally this year, which is a huge increase from the 2020 election.
And board members ordered a recount for District 57 in the New Mexico House of Representatives. That seat in Rio Rancho was left vacant by Republican Rep. Jason Harper, who resigned earlier this year.
Republicans gain 1 state House seat and 1 Senate seat, but Dems still have big majority
The race is currently split by a tiny margin: 130 votes of 16,618 cast. Candidates Republican Catherine Jeanette Cullen and Democrat Michelle Eleanor Sandoval each have 50% of the vote.
Cullen has the slight lead. If she’s still ahead after the recount, Republicans will have 26 seats in the House, compared with 44 seats held by Democrats.
The results of the recount, which is required when candidates are separated by less than 1% of the total votes cast, will be finalized Dec. 16, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. A Los Alamos County Commission race with five candidates will also be subject to a recount.
“The 2024 General Election was run with efficiency and integrity by the state’s election administrators and every New Mexican should have the highest level of confidence in these official election results,” said Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver in a news release.
Here’s a breakdown of the voting figures the board certified Tuesday:
Huge increase in provisional ballots amid same-day registration delays
The number of election-day voters increased drastically from the last presidential election in 2020. So did the number of people who voted provisionally.
Across the state on Nov. 5, voters faced delays if they tried to register and vote on the same day, which state officials have attributed to technical difficulties and high demand.
If those seeking same-day registration faced long wait times, county clerks told them to cast provisional ballots. Those ballots can then be counted later once elections officials confirm a voter is eligible.
Some voters, including students at the University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University, waited three hours or longer to register and cast ballots. Polling places elsewhere were forced to stay open past the statewide 7 p.m. closing time to deal with the backlog.
New Mexico’s top election official: ‘Overwhelmed’ same-day voter registration system caused delays
This year, 8,091 voters cast provisional ballots, or about .9% of voters. In 2020, just 687 voters cast ballots provisionally, or about 0.1% of voters who cast ballots that year, according to a report from the United States Election Assistance Commission.
The secretary of state’s office said the high demand for same-day registration caused a brief “outage” early in the morning, and then the state devoted additional servers to try to efficiently process the registration forms. Still, county clerks and elections observers said they spent the rest of the day trying to catch up.
Elections observers with the Carter Center noted same-day voter registration delays in 14 counties. The group reported voters waited between 10 minutes and more than two hours. Some voters left without voting, according to a news release from the group.
Same-day registration has been legal in New Mexico since 2019 and was expanded in subsequent years. During local elections in 2023, about 4,900 voters used same-day voter registration. That was about 2% of all the voters who cast ballots that election.