Surrounded by voting rights activists and tribal leaders Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham Thursday signed the New Mexico Voting Protection Act, House Bill 4, into law.
It’s being called one of the most important pieces of legislation to be approved during the just completed session and the strongest to protect Native-American voting rights in the country.
The bill expands automatic voter registration, requires drop boxes in every county, and automatically allows felons to vote after completing their sentence.
It also includes the Native American Voting Rights Act which allows natives to use the address of public buildings on tribal land as a mailing address for voting purposes and have voting precinct boundaries be consistent with tribal boundaries.
Lujan Grisham says New Mexico’s new voting laws should be a model for other states.
“We have good leadership in the legislature and we have good statewide elected leaders,” she said. “We cannot in this climate take that for granted that governors and secretaries of state and policy makers are going to be able to navigate it and we want to send a message to the rest of the country that this is what voting protection and access should look like and that’s exactly what this bill does.”
Chairman Mark Mitchell of the All Indian Pueblo Council of Governors says there is no reason native peoples should have a higher barrier to reach to participate in the democratic process. Under previous law, tribes had to ask for voting locations a year in advance of an election, which made it difficult to get them established on tribal land.