New Mexico Independents

SANTA FE (AP) - A newly formed political group is targeting independent voters and urging them to support a split ticket of candidates in the November general election to prevent one-party domination of government at the state and national levels.

"This is a chance for people who don't want to associate their names with any party to be active and make sure their votes will make a difference," Abraham Gutmann, who founded the political committee, Independent Voters of New Mexico, said Thursday.

So-called independents _ those unaffiliated with a political party _ have been the fastest-growth segment of New Mexico's electorate and their numbers have doubled during the past decade. They account for 15 percent of the state's registered voters. About 49 percent of registered voters are Democrats and a third are Republicans. Other parties make up the remainder.


Gutmann, who lives in the east mountain area near Albuquerque, is a former state Green Party chairman and the Green nominee for U.S. Senate in 1996. He said Bruce Bush, a longtime Libertarian Party activist, also helped organized the new political committee.