{"id":14649,"date":"2010-03-16T15:03:59","date_gmt":"2010-03-16T21:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=14649"},"modified":"2010-03-17T14:11:47","modified_gmt":"2010-03-17T20:11:47","slug":"campos-qualified-for-the-ballot-after-all-dems-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/03\/campos-qualified-for-the-ballot-after-all-dems-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Campos qualified for the ballot after all, Dems say"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Joe Campos (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

Lieutenant governor candidate\u2019s 19.69 percent at preprimary convention should have been rounded up, party rules<\/h4>\n

Joe Campos<\/a> qualified to appear on the primary ballot for lieutenant governor on Saturday after all, the Democratic Party of New Mexico has decided.<\/p>\n

The party says it\u2019s required by state law to round up Campos\u2019 19.69 percent of delegate votes from the preprimary nominating convention to 20 percent \u2013 the threshold for qualifying for the ballot at the convention.<\/p>\n

The ruling to reverse courses and round the number up was made today by Party Chairman Javier Gonzales following a unanimous vote of the party\u2019s judicial council in support of qualifying Campos for the ballot. That means the party will ask the Secretary of State\u2019s Office to certify three lieutenant governor candidates as having qualified at Saturday\u2019s convention \u2013 Campos, Brian Col\u00f3n<\/a> and Lawrence Rael<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re back to work, rather us having to look for petition signatures, so obviously this is a lot better,\u201d Campos said in an interview. \u201cWe\u2019re going to keep pushing forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s ruling from the party is significant because, by law, those who fail to get 20 percent at the convention have to collect twice as many signatures as those who do get 20 percent if they want to appear on the ballot. And no candidate who has failed the organizational test of getting 20 percent at the convention has gone on to win the primary.<\/p>\n

The statute the party cited in reversing courses states that, at any place in the election code \u201crequiring counting or computation of numbers, any fraction or decimal greater than one-half of a whole number shall be counted as a whole number.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is exactly why the Democratic Party of New Mexico waits three days before certifying, so everyone can thoroughly review the rules and make the right call,\u201d attorney John Wertheim, a former state party chairman who was involved in the ruling, said. \u201cIn this case, the law is clear.\u201d<\/p>\n

The party originally announced Saturday that Col\u00f3n had 34.3 percent of the vote, Rael had 21.9 percent, Campos had 19.9 percent, Jerry Ortiz y Pino<\/a> had 18.86 percent and\u00a0Linda Lopez<\/a> had 5 percent. After a recount, Col\u00f3n had 34.54 percent, Rael had 22.15 percent, Campos had 19.69 percent, Ortiz y Pino had 18.87 percent and Lopez had 4.73 percent.<\/p>\n

Though Campos\u2019 support fell slightly with the recount, it\u2019s still above the 19.5 threshold at which the party would have rounded up.<\/p>\n

Campos says he\u2019ll keep \u2018leaping\u2019 over \u2018hurdles\u2019<\/h3>\n

Campos said the new challenge to the party\u2019s interpretation of the rules came only after a number of county party chairs complained. He said the original interpretation of the election code was an attempt to keep him off the ballot.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just tough running against the Richardson machine putting up hurdles,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just have to keep leaping over them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked who was putting hurdles in his campaign\u2019s path, Campos declined to specify. Richardson has not endorsed any candidate in the race, and he did not specifically accuse Richardson.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m saying is that there\u2019s been hurdles. A lot of my supporters have been strong-armed. Donors have been threatened. It\u2019s one after another,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ortiz y Pino has said, though he didn\u2019t qualify for the ballot Saturday, that he\u2019s staying in the race.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Adam Kokesh<\/p><\/div>\n

What about Kokesh?<\/h3>\n

There\u2019s another candidate, on the Republican side, who might be interested in the Democratic Party\u2019s ruling. Republican 3rd Congressional District candidate Adam Kokesh<\/a> won the support of 19.5 percent of delegates at his party\u2019s preprimary convention on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The GOP decided after considering the situation that the number should not be rounded up, citing the provision in the election code stating that \u201cevery candidate receiving twenty percent or more of the votes\u201d at the convention qualified for the ballot.<\/p>\n

Kokesh has said he\u2019s staying in the race even though the party ruled that he didn\u2019t qualify for the ballot at the preprimary convention.<\/p>\n

The state GOP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Update, 8:30 p.m.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gonzales, the Democratic Party chairman, responded to Campos\u2019 comments about \u201churdles\u201d and donors being \u201cthreatened\u201d by saying that the state party has done nothing to try to keep Campos off the ballot.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo the contrary,\u201d Gonzales said, he made the decision earlier today to qualify Campos for the ballot \u201cprior to any county party chair involvement\u201d \u2013 despite what Campos claimed \u2013 and prior to the meeting of the judicial council. Gonzales said the council\u2019s vote was simply to ratify his decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud of the fact that we had a successful convention,\u201d Gonzales said. \u201c\u2026 At the end of the day, I\u2019m glad that we were able to cite a law that allowed a candidate (Campos) access to the ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, state GOP spokeswoman Janel Causey said the party is \u201ccurrently reviewing this matter\u201d as it relates to Kokesh \u201cto ensure that the party is in strict adherence with the law, and where applicable, rules, which determine when a candidate has reached the 20 percent threshold of\u00a0delegate votes\u00a0necessary to earn a place on the primary ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATED: Joe Campos qualified to appear on the primary ballot for lieutenant governor on Saturday after all, the Democratic Party of New Mexico has decided. The party says it\u2019s required by state law to round up Campos\u2019 19.69 percent of delegate votes from the preprimary nominating convention to 20 percent \u2013 the threshold for qualifying for the ballot at the convention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[108,107],"class_list":["post-14649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}