A. As used in this section, "total vote" means the sum of all votes cast for all of the party's candidates for governor at the last preceding primary election at which the party's candidate for governor was nominated.
B. Candidates who seek preprimary convention designation shall file nominating petitions at the time of filing declarations of candidacy. Nominating petitions for those candidates shall be signed by a number of voters equal to at least two percent of the total vote of the candidate's party in the state or congressional district, or the following number of voters, whichever is greater: for statewide offices, two hundred thirty voters; and for congressional candidates, seventy-seven voters.
C. Nominating petitions for candidates for any other office to be voted on at the primary election for which nominating petitions are required shall be signed by a number of voters equal to at least three percent of the total vote of the candidate's party in the district or division, or the following number of voters, whichever is greater: for metropolitan court and magistrate courts, ten voters; for the public education commission, twenty-five voters; for state representative, ten voters; for state senator, seventeen voters; and for district attorney and district judge, fifteen voters.
D. A candidate who fails to receive the preprimary convention designation that the candidate sought may collect additional signatures to total at least four percent of the total vote of the candidate's party in the state or congressional district, whichever applies to the office the candidate seeks, and file a new declaration of candidacy and nominating petitions for the office for which the candidate failed to receive a preprimary designation. The declaration of candidacy and nominating petitions shall be filed with the secretary of state either ten days following the date of the preprimary convention at which the candidate failed to receive the designation or on the date all declarations of candidacy and nominating petitions are due pursuant to the provisions of the Primary Election Law, whichever is later.
History: 1953 Comp., § 3-8-24.4, enacted by Laws 1973, ch. 228, § 7; 1975, ch. 255, § 110; Laws 1975, ch. 295, § 17; 1979, ch. 378, § 9, 1982, ch. 1, § 2; Laws 1985, ch. 2, § 6; 1985, ch. 206, § 2; 1987, ch. 216, § 1; 1993, ch. 55, § 7; 1994, ch. 92, § 5; 1995, ch. 124, § 16; 1998, ch. 36, § 5; 2007, ch. 337, § 10; 2008, ch. 57, § 1; 2020, ch. 9, § 5.
ANNOTATIONSContingent effective date. — Laws 2020, ch. 9, § 5 amended 1-8-33 NMSA 1978, effective January 1, 2023, contingent upon certification by the secretary of state that the constitution of New Mexico has been amended as proposed by a joint resolution of the first session of the fifty-fourth legislature (Laws 2019, SJC/SRC/SJR Nos. 1 and 4, CA #1) at the general election to be held on November 3, 2020.
The 2020 amendment, effective January 1, 2023, removed the public regulation commission from the calculation of petition signatures needed to run in a primary election; and in Subsection C, after "ten voters", deleted "for the public regulation commission, fifty voters".