[Lwvcnmtopics] LWVCNM - Monthly Educational Meeting 9/12 - Is Ranked Choice Voting the Answer for Expensive Runoff Elections?

Wed Sep 4 10:25:57 MDT 2024

Dear LWVCNM Members,

Have you heard of Ranked Choice Voting? How does it work and why use it?
Santa Fe and Las Cruces have used it for municipal elections, should
Albuquerque?

For an in-depth look at Ranked Choice Voting please join us on Thursday
September 12th at Noon either in-person in our conference room or on
Zoom for our monthly educational meeting. Our speaker panel will include
clerks that have implemented ranked choice voting, Katharine Clark Santa FE
County Clerk and Christine Rivera Las Cruces City Clerk. Our third panelist
will be Shannon Kunkel from Common Cause NM.

In Albuquerque the cost of recurring runoffs in municipal elections has
spurred debates about how to deal with the issue. This summer, the

The City Council’s solution was to amend the city charter to reduce the
threshold for winning municipal elections from a majority to a plurality.

This resolution was vetoed by the Mayor and the veto was sustained at a
subsequent City Council meeting. Las Cruces and Santa Fe have

adopted Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) for municipal elections with some
success.  *Why not Albuquerque?*

Meet our panelists:

*Shannon Kunkel, the Outreach and Development Director for Common Cause New
Mexico*, will discuss the current state of RCV across the

country.  She is an Albuquerque native and UNM graduate with a bachelor's
degree in journalism in 2008 and an MBA with a focus in marketing

in 2012.  As a former consultant for Common Cause New Mexico, Shannon
brings more than 10 years of experience in the nonpartisan

democracy and good-government space.   In her position, she engages its
membership throughout New Mexico, as well as supporting

democracy-forward policy initiatives at the state and local level.

*Katharine Clark, Santa Fe County Clerk*, heads the County Clerk’s Office
which has been instrumental in the successful rollout of RCV for the

city of Santa Fe. She knows firsthand the challenges that go with
introducing voters to a new way of voting. She will share her experiences
with us.

The County Clerk’s Office also uses targeted voter outreach to expand its
voter base and increase the diversity among voters. Its efforts are

winning results – Santa Fe County now has the highest ‘large county’ voter
turnout in New Mexico.

*Christine Rivera* has been serving as the Las Cruces City Clerk for the
past 5 years. She will discuss the responses from city counselors

and the citizens of Las Cruces to RCV.  She holds Bachelor’s and Master’s
degrees in Psychology.  In recognition of her outstanding

contributions, Christine was nominated for Clerk of the Year in 2023 by the
New Mexico Municipal League and was honored with a place

on the Municipal Clerks Honor Roll in 2024.

Zoom Invitation -

LWVCNM is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Ranked Choice Voting
Time: Sep 12, 2024 12:00 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85789479948?pwd=iuvltc9bzSbqMk1cFSx3MiamjmzbaT.1

Meeting ID: 857 8947 9948
Passcode: 145927
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Meeting ID: 857 8947 9948
Passcode: 145927

Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kulosZTAc

League of Women Voters of Central New Mexico
6739 Academy Rd. NE  Suite 124
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87109-3352
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