House Republican leader argues candidate’s removal over petition formatting undermines election fairness and due process

Gail Armstrong, NM House Republican Leader

The New Mexico Supreme Court now faces a simple question: Will our elections be decided by voters or by technicalities created by the government itself?

The case of Representative Rebecca Dow should not be a close call. Rep. Dow has represented House District 38 for nearly a decade. This cycle, she earned more than enough support to be on the ballot, collecting more than twice the required number of signatures. Not one has been proven invalid.

Yet she was removed anyway — not for fraud, not for misconduct, but because of how petitions generated by the state’s own online system were printed.

That should alarm every voter in New Mexico. The Secretary of State created this new online petition system. It verifies voters automatically. It is controlled entirely by the state. Rep. Dow used it exactly as directed, working with election officials and being walked step by step through the process by the Secretary of State’s own staff on filing day. The county clerk reviewed her filings and approved her candidacy.

Only after the fact did a court step in and disqualify her, based on a formatting issue tied to that same system.

If that stands, then no candidate in New Mexico can safely rely on the rules as they are given. It means the state can create the process, guide candidates through it, approve their filings and then disqualify them anyway. That is not the rule of law. That is a trap.

It gets worse.

The law does not clearly require candidates to print these petitions at all. The state never adopted formal rules for this new system. Even now, there are multiple reasonable interpretations of what the law requires. For decades, courts have been clear: When election laws are ambiguous, the benefit goes to voters, not to disqualification. The right to vote, and to choose a candidate, comes first.

Yet here, the voters of District 38 are being erased over a technical dispute no one can clearly define. The process itself should also concern the court. The hearing was held outside the deadline required by law. Evidence was limited. The candidate was denied a full opportunity to present her case. These are not small procedural issues — they go to the heart of whether this decision can be trusted.

The consequences are enormous.

This decision does not just remove one candidate. It disenfranchises an entire district. It alters the balance of power in the Legislature. It sends a message that elections in New Mexico can be decided not by voters, but by confusion, bureaucracy and after-the-fact rulemaking.

That is exactly the kind of case the New Mexico Supreme Court exists to correct.

The court should take this case. It should reverse this decision. It should make clear, once and for all, that in New Mexico, voters decide elections. Anything less risks telling the people of this state that their voice comes second to a paperwork technicality.

Gail Armstrong (R-Magdalena) is the Minority Floor Leader of the New Mexico House of Representatives, representing District 49, which includes Catron, Sierra, Socorro and Valencia counties.