2020 New Mexico Statutes
Chapter 1 - Elections
Article 1 - Definitions and General Provisions
Section 1-1-26 - Petitions; nominations; requirements before signed by voters; invalidated petitions.

A. The following information shall be listed in the appropriate space at the top of a nominating petition before the petition has been signed by a voter:

(1) the candidate's name as it appears on the candidate's certificate of registration;

(2) the address where the candidate resides;

(3) the office sought by the candidate;

(4) if the office sought is a districted office or a division within a judicial district or has been assigned a position number for purposes of the election, the district, division or position number of the office sought;

(5) if the office sought will be on the general election ballot, the party affiliation of the candidate or that the candidate is unaffiliated with any qualified political party; and

(6) if the office sought will be nominated at a political party primary, the party affiliation of voters permitted to sign the petition.

B. With or without a showing of fraud or a reasonable opportunity for fraud, a nominating petition page, including all signatures on the petition page, shall be invalid if any of the information required by Subsection A of this section is not listed on the petition before the petition page is signed by a voter or if any of the required information is subsequently changed in any way.

History: Laws 2019, ch. 212, § 13.

Emergency clauses. — Laws 2019, ch. 212, § 286, contained an emergency clause and was approved April 3, 2019.

Form of nominating petitions. — Where petitioner sought preprimary designation as a candidate for the office of United States representative from New Mexico's third congressional district at the 2020 republican party pre-primary convention, and where petitioner filed forty-nine nominating petitions containing over 700 signatures, along with her declaration of candidacy, and where the secretary of state invalidated the signatures on forty-four of petitioner's nominating petitions because those petitions omitted the heading "2020 Primary Nominating Petition", which the secretary of state deemed to be critical information required by law, the secretary of state's refusal to accept any nominating petition that did not have the heading at issue was improper because the substance of the invalidated nominating petitions conformed with the form prescribed by § 1-8-30 NMSA 1978 and therefore met the requirements of the Election Code. Morper v. Toulouse Oliver, 2020-NMSC-012.