On July 11, the New Mexico Supreme Court refused to expedite a ballot access case filed by a candidate for Albuquerque Mayor, Stella Padilla. This means that even if the candidate eventually wins the case in the State Supreme Court, it will be too late for her to run in this year’s election.
Padilla had sued the city clerk for rejecting signatures on her petition that actually are valid, in the opinion of the candidate. But the lower state court rejected the case on the grounds that candidates don’t have standing to sue when their petition signatures are improperly ruled invalid. According to the lower state court judge, only the petition signers whose signatures were rejected have standing to sue. That, in my opinion, is absurd, and a gross misuse of standing doctrine. See this story.
The election is October 3, 2017. The election is non-partisan. All candidates needed 3,000 signatures to get on the ballot. Padilla may bring a federal lawsuit. So far no court has actually dealt with whether Padilla does or does not have enough valid signatures. The City Clerk says Padilla is 171 signatures short, but Padilla hired an investigator who revalidated signatures and determined she does have enough.