Albuquerque Rejects Ranked-Choice Voting as Debate Spreads Across New Mexico

Albuquerque will keep its runoff elections after the City Council rejected ranked-choice voting in a 6-3 vote, leaving New Mexico’s largest city on a different path from Santa Fe and Las Cruces as the debate over election rules continues.

The vote on April 6, 2026, was the fourth time councilors had taken up whether municipal elections should switch to ranked-choice voting. Supporters argued the change could save millions of taxpayer dollars by eliminating runoff elections, while opponents said the system could confuse voters and that many people would not want to rank multiple candidates.

Common Cause New Mexico said the proposal came despite rallies and months of public comment from the Ranked Choice Voting ABQ coalition, which it said included 12 diverse community organizations. The group had pushed Albuquerque to join Santa Fe and Las Cruces in using ranked-choice voting for city races.

Santa Fe has used ranked-choice voting in municipal elections since 2018, after voters approved the change in 2008. The city’s Governing Body finalized implementation on Dec. 20, 2017, with absentee-in-person voting beginning Jan. 30, 2018, and Election Day set for March 6, 2018.

Las Cruces adopted the system in 2019 and has continued to use it in city elections. In 2025, District 6 required ranked-choice voting because more than two candidates ran, and official results showed that council race was decided in three rounds. Common Cause New Mexico also pointed to a SurveyUSA poll released Nov. 20, 2025, saying majorities of Santa Fe and Las Cruces voters supported the system.

The group says ranked-choice voting can reduce costs by avoiding runoff elections and can widen the field for candidates. Critics in Albuquerque, however, argued that the process lacks transparency and could make ballots harder to understand, especially for voters who are used to picking a single candidate.

For Los Alamos County readers, the result matters because it shows how election reform is moving unevenly across northern New Mexico. Santa Fe has already lived with the system for years, Las Cruces has used it since 2019, and Albuquerque’s rejection keeps the state’s biggest city on the old runoff model for now. The split leaves local officials and voters with a practical question, not a theoretical one: whether ranked-choice voting is a tool for broader participation or a rule change that risks more confusion than it solves.