A dense, two-sided ballot will greet voters in the Santa Fe municipal election March 4.

Most of the verbiage on the ballot is from proposed amendments to the city charter, a set of seven choices that would change the way the local democracy operates. Although absentee voting has already begun, advocates of the changes rallied at City Hall on Monday to raise awareness of the measures.

Each ballot also features a request for a $30 million bond issue to benefit parks and open spaces, one of four City Council races and the municipal judge race, in which incumbent Ann Yalman is unopposed.

The proposed amendments to the city charter came from the citizen Charter Review Commission, which met for about a year. The City Council then approved taking them to the voters.

While other changes were contemplated, the final seven represent three changes to "direct democracy" by altering the number of signatures required for referendum, recall and initiative; one change to City Council voting rules that would allow the mayor to vote in more instances; and a restriction on municipal judge candidates that would require them to be attorneys.

Two proposals have captured much of the public discussion: Amendment 4, which calls for City Council to establish a system of public campaign financing, and Amendment 5, which would implement ranked-choice voting to get rid of plurality winners in favor of those with support from a majority of constituents.

Advocates of public financing proposed a statewide system that would use taxpayer money instead of private donations to fund campaigns for executive offices, but a bill on the issue died in committee during the recent legislative session.

"Where the Legislature failed, Santa Fe voters can succeed at the municipal level," said Steve Allen, president of Common Cause New Mexico.

Providing voluntary public funds takes moneyed interests out of politics, Allen said at City Hall. "American democracy is in trouble, I think all of us agree, and a big part of the problem is simply the amount of private-interest money flowing into our elections," he said.

While the proposal does not spell out the kind of system the city would implement, it says the City Council will adopt an ordinance within two years of the election "which would provide a meaningful public financing of elections."

Jim Harrington, chairman of the citizen commission, said such a system could cost up to $165,000 per year based on previous campaign spending.

City Councilor Matthew Ortiz introduced an ordinance in 2003 that would have established public campaign financing, but it did not gain approval.

Other public-financing systems are already in place, including in the city of Albuquerque and the state Public Regulation Commission.

Some in the community have expressed doubt about whether such a system is a good use of taxpayer money. City Councilor Ron Trujillo and activist Donado "Cove" Coviello have both spoken out against the idea.

Mayor David Coss said he hopes the March election has better turnout than predicted. In previous years, with little competition in citywide races, fewer than 30 percent of voters have cast ballots.

"We have a reputation as being civically involved, but you could never prove that by our local election turnout," he said, noting that establishing public financing and ranked-choice voting would put Santa Fe "at the front of the country."

Voting Matters, a nonprofit ranked-choice voting advocate, is pushing for the system as a way to increase turnout. The voting systems are already in place in San Francisco and other larger jurisdictions, said Rick Lass, the group's treasurer.

Such a system would allow a voter to choose a first and second choice candidate. If one candidate does not receive a majority of votes, ballots can be recounted based on the voters' No. 2 choice.

The candidate with the fewest votes would be eliminated, and votes would be retallied by counting a vote from each ballot for the highest-ranked candidate who has not been eliminated. The system maintains one vote per person but allows candidates to enjoy support of more constituents, according to Lass.

The City Council added what Councilor Chris Calvert called "sort of a weasel clause" to the amendment, which calls for ranked choice voting in 2010 or "as soon thereafter when equipment and software for tabulating the votes ... (is) available at a reasonable price."

Clay Shentrup, a California-based "election methods enthusiast" with the Center for Range Voting, said he opposes such systems because they are "conducive to the adoption of fraud-susceptible electronic voting machines."

Shentrup told a reporter last year that he planned to conduct an education campaign about misunderstandings related to ranked-choice voting, also called "instant run off" voting in Santa Fe, but was not available for comment Monday night.

Contact Julie Ann Grimm at 986-3017 or jgrimm@sfnewmexican.com.