On August 25, the Libertarian and Green Parties of New Mexico asked a U.S. District Court to place them on the 2010 ballot. Here is the brief. The lawsuit had been filed by the two parties on May 7, and is Woodruff v Herrera, cv-09-449.

The basis for the request is that the Libertarian Party asked for the petition blanks in January 2009, but was told that the Secretary of State’s practice is not to make the forms available until October of odd years, even though there is no law on the subject of when such petitions may be circulated. The brief cites the recent U.S. District Court decision from Rhode Island, in which Rhode Island’s law mandating that petitions to create a new party may not be circulated until January 1 of an election year was held unconstitutional.