Shawn Griffiths
SANTA FE, N.M. - Adding 37,000 people to a primary turnout may not seem like a lot of voters, especially for people who live in large states. However, in New Mexico, independent turnout changed the electoral math.
It wasn’t a stampede to the polls. However, the state’s first semi-open primary produced something more important: proof that voters will participate when the law finally lets them and they have an incentive to vote.
According to unofficial results from New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, 345,482 voters cast ballots in the June 2 primary out of 1,408,185 eligible voters. That’s a turnout of 24.53%.
More than 37,000 of those voters were independent/decline-to-state (or about 11% of the total).
These voters represented about 10% of the registered independent voter population and a sizable chunk of voters who would have been denied access prior to the 2026 midterms.
In a statement Tuesday evening, Toulouse Oliver declared the state’s first semi-open primary a success:
“We had a successful first Semi-open Primary Election thanks to the members of my team, county clerks, and the poll workers who have worked tirelessly to ensure a smooth voting process for all those who participated.”
Though, there are questions over how much was actually done by state and county officials to reach independent voters—more on that in a bit.
Before 2026, New Mexico used a closed primary system. Voters registered with a major party could vote only in that party’s primary, while independent voters were denied access to these taxpayer-funded elections.
Senate Bill 16 in 2025 changed all of that.
The law allows independent and decline-to-state (DTS) voters to choose a major-party primary ballot without changing their registration. It also requires registered party members to vote in their party’s primary.
This is why it is called a semi-open system. Voters still register by party and how they register determines what rights they have in primary elections. But independent voters can participate.
The change mattered immediately.
If the roughly 37,000 independent/DTS voters are subtracted from the 2026 primary total, New Mexico’s ballot count drops from 345,482 to about 308,482. Measured against the full eligible electorate, turnout would fall to roughly 21.9%.
That can make the difference in a lot of primary contests. Data is limited at this point as to what impact these voters had on individual contests, but what is known is that more than 7-in-10 independents picked a Democratic ballot.
As previously explained on IVN, this does not necessarily indicate party leanings.
These voters picked the primary in which their vote would have the most consequential impact in a state where Democrats have a super-majority in the legislature, control the executive branch, and all seats in Congress.
New Mexico is also a state in which more than half of legislative seats went uncontested by one major party or the other in 2026. So, the only election that mattered to the outcome was literally the primary for the party with candidates.
A 10% turnout among registered independent voters is also important in the context that most county election offices did not prominently mention semi-open primaries or that independent voters now have the right to vote.
Cathy Stewart of Open Primaries and Let Us Vote said her organization did an investigation into the matter in an interview with KRWG:
“As we headed into early voting, we were checking all of the county websites, and most of them did not have a notice prominently displayed or anywhere on the site that let decline to state voters know that they had this brand new voting right."
Stewart added that a mailer was sent out, but voters needed a magnifying glass to read the text.
“[O]ne mailer is not going to do it. And that's actually why we stepped in to run a very vibrant independent to independent education campaign with ads on Hulu and CTV and YouTube, all in the voices of New Mexico independent voters," she said.
Source New Mexico also reported on May 1 that 20 of the state’s 33 county clerk websites made no mention of semi-open primaries just days before early voting began.
Notably, some of the biggest counties did. Santa Fe County, for example, has a dedicated semi-open primary education page saying independent and DTS voters can participate without changing registration.
McKinley County also has a “NEW! SEMI-OPEN PRIMARIES” page that directly tells unaffiliated, DTS, and independent voters they can choose which party’s ballot to receive.
The secretary of state’s website says New Mexico’s semi-open primary system allows voters not registered with a qualified political party, including DTS and independent voters, to choose a major-party ballot without changing registration.
Still, with limited outreach to voters, an information vacuum existed that Let Us Vote New Mexico sought to fill with its Get Out The Vote campaign.
"We wanted to reach out to independents across the state to make sure they know they have a new primary voting right," Stewart said in a recent comment to IVN. The numbers suggest the group’s efforts had a positive impact.
For years, nearly a quarter of New Mexico’s electorate paid for primary elections that often decided political power but had no meaningful way to participate without joining a private political party.
In 2026, more than 37,000 of those voters made history. It may only be 10% of registered independents in the state, but they are voters that couldn't participate under the old system.