Early voting is underway in Bernalillo County, and there will be an early voting site open in the Student Union Building until Saturday, in order to make it easier for students and staff to cast a ballot.
Joey Keefe, a public information officer in the Bernalillo County Clerk’s Office, said the office currently has 19 early voting convenience centers and 69 voting convenience centers in Bernalillo County.
“Our goal is to always have polling locations in parts of the county that will be able to serve as many voters as possible,” Keefe said.
Within UNM there is technically just one location, he said, but there should be 20 to 30 voting booths operating.
The site is located on the 3rd floor of the SUB in rooms Lobo A and B, he said.
Keefe said the UNM location was logical because of the way that it is set up and the fact that there are potentially thousands of eligible voters on campus at any given time.
So far in 2016, 4,316 voters have cast a ballot at the UNM site, he said.
During the equivalent amount of time in 2012, 4,269 voters cast a ballot at the UNM site.
Because of these numbers, he said overall, the turnout at the UNM site has been fairly consistent from one presidential election to the next.
“It is difficult to say how many of these are actual students, though we have heard positive feedback from students who are able to cast a ballot without needing to leave campus,” Keefe said.
To inform students of the early voting station, the Bernalillo County Clerk’s Office has had a voter outreach team, which has been very active at UNM leading up to this year’s election, he said.
Keefe said the team has held at least 15 events at UNM since the end of this year’s primary election, which includes, among others, third party voter registration agent trainings and voter registration drives.
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The County Clerk’s Office engages in an ongoing advertising campaign throughout each election year to educate voters about their options, he said.
This advertising includes more digital and social media outreach leading up to this election, as the method tends to be successful with college-aged voters, Keefe said.
As far as how the early voter stations work, Keefe said that under the voting convenience center model, an eligible Bernalillo County voter may cast a ballot at any location within the county.
This means that a voter is able to vote wherever is most convenient, based on where they may be at any given point during the day and regardless of the precinct in which they are registered, he said.
Keefe said it is important for the UNM student population to remember that this year’s ballot is long and has a lot of content on it.
It is a 19-inch, two-sided ballot, and Keefe said that studying your sample ballot before you head to an early voting location will help you make more informed decisions and will allow you to complete the process in a shorter amount of time.
Students may access their sample ballot by visiting www.bernco.gov/MyVoterInformation and typing in their name as it appears on their voter registration form, as well as their full date of birth, he said.
Keefe said that all early voting convenience centers in the county, including the UNM site, will close at 8 p.m. on Friday. Keefe noted that the UNM site will also be a voting convenience center on Election Day, for those who aren’t able to cast a ballot before early voting ends.
On Election Day, the UNM site will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., he said.
Gabe Gallegos, spokesperson for ASUNM said that although ASUNM is not involved in the early voting booths, they encourage everyone to get out there out and vote.
Gallegos said ASUNM believes having a polling location here at UNM is convenient and accessible for the students here.
“We hope having a location here gets millennials and University students out to vote,” he said.
Nichole Harwood is a news reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Nolidoli1.
