(Updated) DPNM Rules that Joe Campos Got 20% of Vote at Pre-Primary Convention

Update: The DPNM just issued a statement clarifying their decision, saying that "after thorough review of the rules of the party and the State of New Mexico Election Handbook, Representative Campos received 20% of the votes cast in the Lt. Governor convention vote. The ruling of the Chair was further supported by a unanimous vote of the DPNM Judicial Committee, 10-0, in favor of recommending the ruling of the Chairman. Representatives from the Rael, Colon and Ortiz y Pino campaigns all stated after the decision that they respected the ruling and would seek no further challenge."

According to the DPNM, Joe Campos received 19.69% of the votes, which in accordance to the rule is rounded to 20%.

"This is exactly why the Democratic Party of New Mexico waits three days before certifying, so everyone can thoroughly review the rules and make the right call," said former Chairman and DPNM pro-bono legal counsel John Wertheim in a written statement. “In this case, the law is clear, and we’re pleased that the other candidates voiced their support and respect for Chairman Gonzales’ ruling.”

"I am very pleased with success and record participation at the pre-primary convention. We are the party of inclusion and look forward to supporting all of our Democratic candidates," said Democratic Party Chairman Javier Gonzales.

The DPNM said that action on the convention is complete. The vote will be certified and the three names submitted to the Secretary of State for inclusion on the primary ballot are as follows: Brian Colon, Lawrence Rael and Jose Campos.

The below, final vote tally will be certified today.

Lt. Governor
Ortiz y Pino: 323 votes 18.87%
Jose Campos: 337 votes 19.69%
Brian Colon: 591 votes 34.54%
Linda Lopez: 81 votes 4.73%
Lawrence Rael: 379 votes 22.15%
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The Judicial Council of the Democratic Party of New Mexico met today to consider a complaint filed by the Joe Campos for Lieutenant Governor campaign insisting that he received 20% of the vote at this past Saturday's Pre-Primary Convention. The Council voted unanimously in Campos' favor, agreeing that the votes Campos received on March 13, 2010 did indeed qualify him to be on the ballot without the need to submit additional petition signatures. The Judicial Council's advice supported a ruling by DPNM Chairman Javier Gonzales in favor of Campos' position.

Originally, the DPNM said that Campos was one vote shy of 20%, based on what turned out to be an incorrect analysis of how percentages or fractions are to be rounded. However, it was discovered that a section in New Mexico's election code clearly shows that the Party's original analysis of fractions/percentages was incorrect:

Section 1-1-20
In any place in the Election Code [1-1-1 NMSA 1978] requiring counting or computation of numbers, any fraction or decimal greater than one-half of a whole number shall be counted as a whole number.

After the votes were tallied at the Convention, the DPNM originally said Campos had to have 355.2 votes to qualify for the 20%, based on taking the number of delegate votes (1776) times 20% to get the number 355.2. However, the election code language means that the whole number alone would be enough. Later, a hand recount of the ballots gave Campos 337 votes, or 19.67. So the ruling considers that number as constituting 20% by rounding.

The ruling means that the election results revert back to those of the recount. Therefore, Brian Colon, Lawrence Rael and Joe Campos will be on the June Democratic primary ballot for lieutenant governor, in that order. The two candidates who did not get 20% of the vote, Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino and Sen. Linda Lopez, will not be on the ballot unless they submit more petition signatures by the March 31 deadline. Both of them have said they plan to to just that.

Note: I made several corrections to my original rushed report.