On October 11, the New Mexico Democratic Party filed a lawsuit in the State Supreme Court against Secretary of State Dianna Durbin, arguing that she should not have removed the straight-ticket device from general election ballots. She took that action on February 24, 2012, but the Democratic Party’s brief claims it did not receive official notice until September 2012.

New Mexico law does not authorize a straight-ticket device. It says party logos should be on the ballot next to the party’s “ticket”. The Democratic Party construes this language to mean that there must be a straight-ticket device. The case is Democratic Party of New Mexico v Duran, 33860. On October 16, the State Supreme Court put the case on hold, while the Secretary of State attempts to move the case to federal court. She says the case belongs in federal court because many voters have already voted absentee, and it would violate the U.S. Constitution to have the straight-ticket device on some ballots and not other ballots.

The 2012 legislature considered a bill to explicitly provide for a straight-ticket device, SB 218, but that bill did not pass. After the bill failed to pass, the Secretary of State said she would therefore take that as a sign that the will of the legislature was that there should be no straight-ticket device. Previous Secretaries of State had printed a straight-ticket device on the ballot even though the law did not explicitly authorize that. The previous Secretary of State removed the straight-device for all the parties except the two major parties.