On March 7, 2013, some Republican candidates and a Republican voter sued Sandoval County, New Mexico, election officials for voter suppression. Specifically, the lawsuit charged that the County Clerk, who is a Democrat, arranged to have so few voting machines in Rio Rancho (a Republican-leaning city in Sandoval County), that some voters had to wait in line as much as five hours.

The case, Fleming v Gutierrez, 1:13cv-222, is still undecided, almost a year after it was first filed. U.S. District Court Judge William P. Johnson, an appointee of George W. Bush, has denied all attempts by the county to have the case dismissed on procedural grounds. Officials of the Secretary of State’s office have filed affidavits saying that if the county had asked for more voting machines, they would have been furnished. However, the case is taking so long to resolve, the plaintiffs’ request that certain election outcomes from the November 2012 election be reversed seem likely to soon become moot. Some of the plaintiffs had been Republican nominees who had narrowly been defeated, and they had argued that without the voting problem, they likely would have won. For more details about the case, see here.