By Pat Davis/Sandoval Signpost
The state senate campaign of a high-profile former DREAMer may be stopped before it starts if a judge agrees with a small group of voters that the candidate’s petitions to qualify for the ballot don’t count.
A lawsuit prepared this week by Audrey Trujillo, a Corrales Republican candidate for State Senate District 9, and two high-profile local Democrats, County Commissioner Katherine Bruch and former District 9 State Senator John Sapien, asks a judge to invalidate more than 230 signatures of local voters nominating Democrat Cindy Nava of Bernalillo to the District 9 seat.
The issue involves a technical error on the petition forms Nava used to qualify for the ballot which her campaign admits accidentally listed Nava’s Town of Bernalillo address as being in Bernalillo County instead of Sandoval County.
“Over 250 Democratic voters in Senate District 9 signed petitions to put Cindy’s name on the ballot,” Nava’s campaign manager Sandra Wechsler told the Sandoval Signpost. “They know, as we do, that Cindy’s experience and story is inspiring voters, and that she is a needed voice in the State Senate. It is unfortunate her opponents seek to disenfranchise the will of these voters by filing this challenge.”
But the lawsuit petitioners say good intent isn’t good enough and they say state law is clear that nominating petitions with address errors must be thrown out.
To be placed on the ballot for the Democratic primary in June, Nava was required to obtain the signatures of 3% of registered Democratic voters in District 9, or 127 signatures. She submitted over 250 to the county clerk on filing day earlier this month.
But the online and paper petitions Nava’s campaign used listed “Bernalillo” in the section for the candidate’s county of residence. Nava lives in the Town of Bernalillo which is in Sandoval County.
It is easy to see how a candidate could make this mistake, especially when they live in the Town of Bernalillo which shares its name with neighboring Bernalillo County. The nominating petition template candidates are required to use includes spaces for a candidate’s name, home address and county. But unlike a standard mailing address that includes the street address and city together (such as 123 Main St, Bernalillo, NM), the nominating form only asks for the street address (123 Main Street) and the county where that address is located (Sandoval). Nava’s petitions included her home street address in the proper box but erroneously listed Bernalillo, her town, in the county box.
State law dictates that “a nominating petition page, including all signatures on the petition page, shall be invalid if any of the information required… of this section [including the address where the candidate resides] is not listed on the petition before the petition page is signed by a voter,” the petitioners point out in their lawsuit. Other provisions make it a misdemeanor to “to knowingly circulate, present or offer to present for the signature of another person a nominating petition that does not clearly show on the face of the petition the name of the candidate, the address at which the candidate resides, the candidate’s county of residence and the office for which the candidate seeks nomination.”
If Trujillo’s lawsuit is successful, Democrat Heather Balas will be the only Democrat remaining on the ballot in the June primary and advance to take on Trujillo in the November general election. Current State Senator Brenda McKenna (D) announced earlier this year she would not seek re-election. McKenna endorsed Nava as her successor.
Former State Senator Dede Feldman, now a good government advocate with Common Cause New Mexico, told the Signpost that the law requiring candidates to provide specific address information is designed to ensure that candidates live in communities they seek to represent. She says that while challenges to specific voters or even a candidate’s residency are fairly common, she cannot remember a specific case where all of a candidate’s petitions could be invalidated. That could create a challenge for a judge, she says, to weigh whether a technical error on the form is enough to overrule the voter intent of the local voters who nominated Nava in good faith.
The court case specifically asks a judge to direct the county clerk to disqualify Nava and remove her name from the June 5 Democratic primary ballot. A court date has not yet been set.