Voter turnout in New Mexico was 41% before election day ever made it here. I expect total turnout will be pretty high, but with that many people having already cast their ballots it only took me 15 minutes to vote this morning. If I had been in either of the other two precincts voting at the same location as I was it would have taken me far less time.

The operation was running very smoothly, they just needed some more surfaces for filling out the ballot, that seemed to be the biggest wait. If they would just set up a couple of tables they would be good to go.

Before getting in line someone approached me to find out which precinct I was in and make sure I stood in the correct line. There were large signs in English & Spanish indicating which lines were for which precincts and for those who didn’t know which precinct they were in there were multiple individuals placing phone calls to a hotline to find out for them.

While I was there a “voter watcher” showed up to observe things and make sure there were no problems. When she was approached to find out which precinct she was in (and after they explained the system to here) she says in a loud voice “those signs are misleading.” Whatever she clearly wanted to cause problems not solve them. The system was perfectly clear. Later I saw here asking questions of the polling officials, which as I heard on the radio this morning, is something she explicitly is not supposed to do. So, except for the “poll watchers” voting appears to going smoothly this morning. If you haven’t done it yet, GO VOTE! Even if you have to wait in line for hours, it’s worth it.