NM-01: Vigil-Giron Stays on Ballot, Lujan Grisham's Complaint Rejected

The AP reports:

Judge Daniel Sanchez rejected a challenge brought by the campaign of another congressional candidate, Michelle Lujan Grisham ... The Lujan Grisham campaign claimed that Vigil-Giron did not have enough valid voter signatures on her nominating petition to meet state requirements for getting on the ballot. The judge disagreed after a hearing late Friday, saying Vigil-Giron had a sufficient number of valid signatures.

Also check out this later, more detailed AP story. Here's my previous post on this challenge that lays out the details of the suit. Does anyone else find it odd that former Dem Party Chair John Wertheim would agree to represent the Lujan Grisham supporters in this suit if he didn't have an iron-clad case? The suit claimed that 600 of the signatures submitted by Vigil-Giron were improper. Guess not.

And then there's this:

Vigil-Giron countered that the challenge was based on voter databases that were unreliable and incomplete. [emphasis mine]

... Deborah Armstrong, former secretary of aging and long-term services and a volunteer with the Lujan Grisham campaign, testified that she and others spent close to 300 hours scrutinizing four different databases to check Vigil-Giron's signatures.

What were the four databases that were being examined and why were they unreliable and incomplete? Do these alleged database problems have any relation to the problems encountered in the Dem presidential preference caucus, where the names of significant numbers of legitimate voters were not found on the lists used at the caucus sites? I don't get it. Shouldn't there be ONE master list that can be used to check the validity of both voters and petition signatures?

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear we'll be learning the answers to questions about the snafus at the Dem prez caucus anytime soon. The "caucus summit" originally scheduled for this month by the Dem Party has been postponed indefinitely. A major item on the summit's agenda was supposed to be a report on the registered voter lists used at the caucus sites, how they were developed and the source of the data that was used for the lists. We also heard that the reasons for list inaccuracies and omissions would be researched and revealed at the summit.

You'd think that all concerned -- especially the State Dem Party -- would want to have all this ironed out before the June 3rd primary so similar problems could be avoided. I know voters are very concerned. Why not those who can actually get to the root of the problems?

Back to the challenge of Vigil-Giron's petition signatures, the strategy of the Lujan Grisham campaign was clearly to eliminate former Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron from the ballot so that the two Latina candidates wouldn't split the vote in a four-candidate race. Martin Heinrich is the strong frontrunner in this contest for Repub Heather Wilson's current seat in New Mexico's First Congressional District. Heinrich may well have an easier time of it with both Lujan Grisham and Vigil-Giron in the race. Political newcomer Robert Pidcock will also be on the ballot.

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