{"id":38791,"date":"2012-04-09T10:48:01","date_gmt":"2012-04-09T16:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=38791"},"modified":"2012-04-09T10:48:28","modified_gmt":"2012-04-09T16:48:28","slug":"eight-voters-challenge-smiths-candidacy-in-cd1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/04\/eight-voters-challenge-smiths-candidacy-in-cd1\/","title":{"rendered":"Eight voters challenge Smith\u2019s candidacy in CD1"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_38451\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignright\" style=\"max-width: 270px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-38451\" title=\"Smith, Gary\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Smith-Gary.jpg\" alt=\"Gary Smith (Courtesy photo)\" width=\"270\" height=\"252\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gary Smith (Courtesy photo)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Eight GOP voters are challenging the candidacy of Republican 1st Congressional District hopeful\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.garysmith2012.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Gary Smith<\/a>, alleging he didn\u2019t turn in enough valid signatures to appear on the June 5 primary ballot.<\/p>\n<p>If successful, the petition, filed Friday in district court in Albuquerque, would result in Smith\u2019s removal from the ballot. That would automatically make <a href=\"http:\/\/janice2012.us\/\" target=\"_blank\">Janice Arnold-Jones<\/a> the GOP\u2019s nominee for the seat.<\/p>\n<p>As it stands, Arnold-Jones is overwhelmingly the favorite to win. Smith is in this position because he won the support of only 4 percent of delegates at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/03\/gop-gives-moderate-women-preprimary-victories\/\" target=\"_blank\">the recent GOP preprimary nominating convention<\/a> \u2013 you need 20 percent to qualify for the ballot \u2013 and had to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/03\/sowards-smith-file-to-stay-in-federal-races\/\" target=\"_blank\">collect additional signatures<\/a> to stay on the ballot.<\/p>\n<p>Arnold-Jones won the support of 63 at that convention. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.danlewis2012.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Dan Lewis<\/a>, who <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/03\/lewis-drops-out-of-congressional-race\/\" target=\"_blank\">later dropped out<\/a>, won the support of 34 percent of delegates.<\/p>\n<p>The petition to disqualify Smith, which you can read <a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/Documents\/0406.SmithComplaint.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>, alleges that he gathered an additional 1,823 signatures to qualify for the ballot after falling short of 20 percent at the preprimary. He needed 1,579 valid signatures, but the voters allege that 492 signatures he submitted weren\u2019t valid, leaving him with 1,331 valid signatures.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUpon quick review of Smith\u2019s nominating petitions, it was clear that some voters who had signed Arnold-Jones\u2019 petitions long ago had also more recently signed Smith\u2019s petitions.\u00a0 That led to a closer examination of all of Smith\u2019s petitions,\u201d said Paul M. Kienzle III, attorney for the challengers.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to some duplicate signatures, those that are invalid include signatures of people who aren\u2019t Republicans and even some who aren\u2019t registered to vote, the challengers allege.<\/p>\n<p>Smith hasn\u2019t yet responded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eight GOP voters are challenging the candidacy of Republican 1st Congressional District hopeful Gary Smith, alleging he didn\u2019t turn in enough valid signatures to appear on the June 5 primary ballot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[228,156,116],"class_list":["post-38791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-1st-congressional-district-race","tag-2012-election","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38791","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=38791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38791\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}