Published Ocy 16, 2008
Rio Arriba County voters don’t want to wait until the Nov. 4 election — they’re flooding the County Clerk’s office with absentee ballot requests.
Deputy Clerk Maria Elena Rodela said in her 10 years with the office she has never seen so many absentee ballot requests. She said her staff is working long hours just to keep up.
“We’ve been coming in at 5 o’clock in the morning,” she said. “We mailed out 1,550, and we still have about 2,000 to go.”
Rodela said absentee in-person voting in Tierra Amarilla, which began Oct. 7, has also attracted comparatively large numbers. As of Tuesday, she said more than 100 people have voted absentee in-person.
“It’s the biggest turnout I’ve seen with the absentee applications,” she said.
Voter registration is also higher in the County than it has been on presidential years for two decades. The SUN reported Oct. 2 that the number of registered voters was down from 2004, but more than 800 people registered between the publication and the Oct. 7 deadline: now 20,381 Democrats, 2,799 Republicans and 2,327 third-party and independent voters are on the rolls, for a grand total of 25,507 voters. In 2004, there were 24,839 registered voters in the County. Democrats compose about 80 percent of the total.
Secretary of State spokesman James Flores said the increased number of voters in the County is part of a national trend.
“There’s a lot of interest, especially in our Congressional races,” he said.