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Nine months and eight days of campaigning has led to this.
Albuquerque residents will vote for a new mayor today, as polls opened for the city’s general elections at 7 a.m. The three candidates include incumbent Richard Berry and challengers Pete Dinelli and Paul Heh.
City Clerk Amy Bailey said the city has been preparing for election day for about a year now. She said her office has been “actively planning and getting resources into place” since campaign season kicked off in January.
Setting up polling locations has run smoothly, Bailey said.
“We began setting up late last week, as we can only begin to set up the equipment in the locations five days prior to the election,” she said. “The sites themselves have been scouted and secured for several months.”
Bailey said Albuquerque’s voter registration numbers have increased steadily since the previous city elections, although she is not sure by how much. She said that this year, she expects a larger voter turnout than in the 2009 mayoral elections.
“Our voter registration numbers have increased, the 2012 election cycle got many new voters interested in the process and our early voting numbers more than doubled those of 2009,” she said.
And Bailey said a runoff election “is entirely possible, but the voters will make that decision at the voting locations.”
Albuquerque election procedures require a runoff if a candidate does not win a majority of the votes. This means that either Berry, Dinelli or Heh must garner more than 50 percent of votes to secure the mayoral seat and avoid a runoff.
In the past 30 years, no mayor has won with more than 50 percent of total votes during the first round of elections.
This year may mark a change from that trend. According to an Albuquerque Journal poll conducted last month, Berry polled at 63 percent. Dinelli placed second at 18 percent, and Heh trailed at 2 percent.
The city has already scheduled a runoff for Nov. 19.
Bailey said she encourages students to cast their ballots today.
“All voters are important,” she said. “Although the councilor for District 6, where the majority of the campus is located, is not up for election in this cycle, I believe local government has a huge impact on everyone that lives here.”
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Although students will not be able to vote in the Student Union Building for the general election this year, they can still vote at the Isotopes Park and at the Highland Senior Center, which Bailey said are the closest polling locations to UNM.
Registered voters have to bring a photo ID to the locations, and a UNM ID would work perfectly, Bailey said.
Polls will be open until 7 p.m. tonight.
Use the hashtag #ABQ2013 to join the conversation on Twitter.
