Former Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron will remain in the race for the Democratic nomination for Congress from New Mexico's 1st District, a judge ruled Monday.

State District Judge Daniel Sanchez, following a 5.5 hour hearing, rejected a challenge brought by supporters of a Democratic rival, Michelle Lujan Grisham.

Sanchez determined Vigil-Giron had enough valid voters' signatures on nominating petitions to qualify for the June 3 primary election ballot.

"Now we can take this election to the people," Vigil-Giron said after the ruling. "We're very happy."

John Wertheim, the lawyer for the challengers, said it hadn't been decided whether to appeal Sanchez's ruling to the state Supreme Court.

Lujan Grisham's camp contended there were so many invalid voters' signatures on Vigil-Giron's nominating petitions that she fell below the required threshold of 1,214 signatures.

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

"This is just an attempt to win an election with a baseless petition challenge," Vigil-Giron's lawyer, Jon Adams, told the court.

There are two other Democrats also vying for the nomination in the Albuquerque-based district: former Albuquerque City Councilor Martin Heinrich and lawyer Robert Pidcock. The seat is being vacated by Republican Rep. Heather Wilson, who is running for the U.S. Senate.

On the GOP side, Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White and state Sen. Joseph Carraro are seeking the nomination.

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.

She testified that she did so under the direction of Wertheim, who is the former chairman of the state Democratic Party.

The Lujan Grisham campaign concluded more than 600 of the signatures were invalid — either because the signers didn't live in the congressional district, for example, or weren't registered as Democrats, or it couldn't be verified that they were registered at all.

By their calculations, Vigil-Giron was 85 signatures short of the necessary 1,214.

Over Wertheim's vigorous objections, Adams gave the judge a document that he said showed more than 100 of the challenged signatures were valid. It was based on information that Vigil-Giron's campaign manager, Darla Aiken, testified that she got from the Bernalillo County Clerk's Office. Sanchez accepted that document.

The judge also ruled that Lujan Grisham's supporters weren't specific enough in their challenge to some of the signatures.

Lujan Grisham, the former state health secretary, said in an interview that her campaign challenged Vigil-Giron's signatures because the threshold requirements for the office are important and voters must be assured that the process is fair and equitable.

"I'm really just focusing on winning, no matter who's on the ballot. ... I just want to get on with campaigning," she said.




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