{"id":3045,"date":"2008-03-31T18:44:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-01T00:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/03\/magistrate-candidates-petition-signatures-challenged\/"},"modified":"2008-03-31T18:44:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-01T00:44:00","slug":"magistrate-candidates-petition-signatures-challenged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/03\/magistrate-candidates-petition-signatures-challenged\/","title":{"rendered":"Magistrate candidate’s petition signatures challenged"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Democratic voter has filed a challenge in district court to the petition signatures filed last week by Frank Rivera, a candidate for Do\u00f1a<\/st1:PlaceName> Ana<\/st1:PlaceName> County<\/st1:PlaceName><\/st1:place> magistrate judge.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Nancy Abeyta is seeking to disqualify Rivera, a Democrat, from the race on the grounds that he didn\u2019t submit enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, her attorney Greg Valdez said. Valdez<\/st1:City> filed the request in district court in Las Cruces<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> on Friday.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

A hearing has not been scheduled.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Valdez<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> said there are three problems with Rivera\u2019s signatures. Many are from individuals who aren\u2019t registered Democrats, at least two are duplicates, and one includes a signature but no other information about the person who signed.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Valdez<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> said he didn\u2019t know offhand how many signatures on the petition are invalid, but said it was enough to remove Rivera from the ballot, if a judge agrees with his legal arguments. To get on the ballot in the magistrate race, a candidate had to file 128 signatures of registered Democrats living in the county. Rivera filed 182 signatures.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Rivera said he didn\u2019t gather most of the signatures himself but was surprised to learn of a potential challenge when one of his opponents, Democrat Maria Rodriguez, asked to meet with him a week ago. The two met at a restaurant in Las Cruces<\/st1:place><\/st1:City>. Rodriguez went over his petitions with him and showed him what she said were problems, Rivera said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

She then asked how he wanted to handle the situation, and if he wanted to drop out of the race. Rivera said he told her he would think about it. When she called him Wednesday evening, he told her to challenge the signatures if she wanted to.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cWe just decided we\u2019re going to let this run its course and see what happens,\u201d Rivera said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Rodriguez said she\u2019s not involved in the challenge to Rivera\u2019s signatures, but confirmed that she met with Rivera last week and that Abeyta spoke for her at a meeting of the Progressive Voter Alliance<\/a> in January. She said Abeyta brought the signature issue to her attention, so she sought the meeting last Monday with Rivera.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cIt could have the appearance that I tried to strong-arm him, but I didn\u2019t,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cIt\u2019s just that when I found out about it, I wanted to share it with him so he could have an opportunity to decide what to do. Even when we looked at it, he admitted that some of the signatures weren\u2019t valid.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Rodriguez said she told Rivera she wouldn\u2019t personally challenge the signatures but didn\u2019t know what others would decide to do. State law gives any registered Democrat living in the county the right to challenge a petition in this Democratic primary, should he or she choose.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cMy focus is to campaign and win an election that I believe I\u2019m qualified to win,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The other candidates in the Democratic primary for magistrate judge are Francisco Ortiz and incumbent Kent Wingenroth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Democratic voter has filed a challenge in district court to the petition signatures filed last week by Frank Rivera, a candidate for Do\u00f1a Ana County magistrate judge. Nancy Abeyta is seeking to disqualify Rivera, a Democrat, from the race on the grounds that he didn\u2019t submit enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045","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=3045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}