Secretary of State Mary Herrera has hired Gerald Gonzalez, a Santa Fe attorney who has held various local and state government jobs, to head the state Bureau of Elections.

Gonzalez, 65, next week is expected to take over a job that Herrera late last month offered to Jim Noel.

Noel, the son-in-law of U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., declined the job Sept. 2 after Republicans criticized his hiring on the eve of an election in which Udall is competing for a U.S. Senate seat.

Gonzalez has served as an attorney for Santa Fe city and county governments. He also was Santa Fe County manager from 2003 to 2006. He currently works as a media representative for the state Senate Democrats at the Legislature and is self-employed in writing projects involving Southwest history.

He also has ties to Udall, having served as chief of staff in Udall's Washington, D.C., congressional office from December 1998 to December 2000. He also worked for Udall from 1995 to 1998, when the congressman was state attorney general.

Gonzalez's ties with Udall prompted Shira Rawlinson, spokeswoman for the state Republican Party to comment, "Why don't they just cut to the chase and let Udall himself count the ballots?"

Gonzalez said Tuesday that the biggest challenge he expects to face is the sheer number of voters expected to turn out Nov. 4.

"Right now, it looks to me just that it's the size of the election, given the presidential election, and that it trickles down," he said.

A former attorney for the town of Taos and a variety of state agencies, Gonzalez also has experience in the state Attorney General's Office. There, he said he worked on voting-related litigation involving Rio Arriba County and the cleaning up of the county's voter rolls.

"My whole public-sector career has been about making government work," he said. "This is just another opportunity to work with what I see as some of the core government processes and make sure we have good elections."

Gonzalez, a New Mexico Highlands University graduate with a Harvard law degree, will earn $97,500 a year, Herrera said.

Gonzalez said he has plenty to do in the days leading up to the election. "There's a lot of training that has to take place between now and then, a lot of coordinating with the county clerks," he said.

"There's a whole slew of things that need to be gone over to make sure they are ready."

New Mexican staff writer Steve Terrell contributed to this report.

Contact Kate Nash at 986-3036 or knash@sfnewmexican.com. Read her blog, Green Chile Chatter, at www.santafenewmexican.com.