Ulibarri asks court to toss opponent from ballot

By Barry Massey
The Associated Press

SANTA FE — A Democratic state senator is asking a district court to remove his Republican challenger from the November general election ballot.

The election dispute involves a Senate district in western New Mexico in which paper ballots turned up missing in the June primary election.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Sen. David Ulibarri of Grants contends that Jose Silva is not a qualified candidate to run in Senate District 30 because he was not registered to vote in the district when the governor’s primary election proclamation was issued in late January. That’s a requirement for candidates under state election law.

According to the lawsuit, Silva changed his voter registration to an address near Grants on March 17 — a day before the filing deadline for legislative candidates.

Silva previously was registered to vote in Los Lunas, which is in another Senate district.

Senate District 30 covers parts of Cibola, Valencia and Socorro counties.

Silva ran unopposed in the June Republican primary and won the nomination. Ulibarri won a three-way Democratic contest by five votes in a recount.

The lawsuit potentially poses a difficult question for the court because removing Silva from the ballot would have the effect of overturning the results of the GOP primary election in the district.

A hearing in the case is scheduled next week in Santa Fe before District Judge Daniel Sanchez.

Ulibarri raised the question of Silva’s candidacy with the secretary of state’s office, but it decided to keep him on the ballot.

In an Aug. 29 letter to Ulibarri, Deputy Secretary of State Don Francisco Trujillo acknowledged that Silva’s voter registration showed a Los Lunas address on the date of the governor’s proclamation but “we do not know where Mr. Silva was residing” then.

Trujillo said a section of state law, which deals with Senate district boundaries, requires “at the time of filing a declaration of candidate for the office of state senator, the candidate shall reside in the district for which he files.”

Silva met that provision of law. Trujillo said voters who signed Silva’s nominating petitions knew that he lived in the Grants area and “he did not defraud or confuse them.”

Silva filed for office with the secretary of state’s office, which placed him on the ballot after accepting his nominating petitions and paperwork.

Ulibarri said he did not review Silva’s filing in March because he was focused on his Democratic primary race, but he checked Silva’s voter registration records after winning the recount.

“I think everybody should follow the same rules,” Ulibarri said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

If Silva remains on the ballot, Ulibarri said, it will set a precedent that potentially allows candidates to move into a district at the last minute before filing to run for office.

Silva said in a telephone interview that he moved to the Grants area in April 2007 because of his job with the state Transportation Department. He acknowledged that he did not change his voter registration address until shortly before filing for the Senate race.

“I believe that what Mr. Ulibarri is trying to do is disqualify me so he can run unopposed,” said Silva, who was unaware of the lawsuit until told of it by a reporter.

The close Democratic primary race in the Senate district was one of the first to be subject to an automatic recount under a new state law. The primary also has drawn attention because 182 ballots from two precincts remain missing. The paper ballots were counted by a tabulating machine on Election Day but the ballots apparently were not saved. The recount was conducted without the ballots by using a memory device from voting machine tabulators.