With a superheated primary season on the horizon, some lawmakers want to give candidates another route to the ballot if they don't get enough support at their parties' conventions.

But a proposal backed by many House leaders places some serious speed bumps on that alternative route.

Candidates for statewide office or Congress could get on the ballot by collecting voters' signatures, under the proposal. But they'd have less than three weeks to do so, and the signatures would have to come from every county in the state or the congressional district.

Critics say that requirement is so burdensome it would effectively keep any candidate who didn't succeed at the preprimary convention off the ballot.

House Voters and Elections Chairman Jose Campos, D-Santa Rosa, the bill's sponsor, says it's aimed at getting candidates out into all the areas they seek to represent — not just the populous urban areas where it's easier to gather signatures. "This would help give a voice to the rural areas," Campos said.

Republican Rep. Justine Fox-Young, who is sponsoring a less restrictive signature bill, said Campos' measure doesn't promote ballot access but rather "will do little other than to maintain the old boys' club."

Candidates trying to get signatures would either have to have an army of supporters or enough money to hire a lot of signature-gatherers — an unlikely scenario, she argued.

"Realistically, no one would be able to comply with this process," the Albuquerque lawmaker said.

State law used to allow statewide or congressional candidates who didn't get the required support of 20 percent of delegates at their party's preprimary nominating conventions to submit voters' signatures to get on the ballot.

That provision was wiped out by a law passed last year, leaving the preprimary convention as the only route to the ballot.

The scramble this year for congressional seats, however, has lawmakers rethinking the change. Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici's planned retirement will leave all three U.S. House seats empty as those members of Congress run for Domenici's seat.

The possibility of multiple candidates in the House races raised the prospect that no one candidate in a given race would get 20 percent at the convention, leaving the major parties without a way to get a candidate on the ballot.

Among the Democratic candidates for Congress in Northern New Mexico's 3rd District is Ben Ray Luján, son of House Speaker Ben Luján, D-Nambé.

The House bill co-sponsored by Fox-Young and Albuquerque Democrat Al Park — identical to a Senate measure sponsored by Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen — would restore the old law. Candidates would have to get a certain number of signatures — which could have been collected even before the convention — and turn them in 10 days after the convention.

"I don't see it as a rural-urban issue. ... The whole point is, we want to provide people access to participate in the democratic process," Park said.

Campos' bill says candidates may start gathering the signatures only after the convention and must turn them in to the secretary of state within 20 days.

"I'm not going to go along with that," the Senate's Sanchez said in an interview.

In the interest of fairness, he said, the law should be restored to what it was before the change, "and if we need to work on it more, we can do it in the 60-day session" next year.

Gov. Bill Richardson has endorsed giving candidates an alternative way to get on the ballot by collecting signatures. His office wouldn't comment on the Campos version of the bill.

Campos' bill is HB203; the Park-Fox-Young bill is HB190 and the Sanchez bill is SB1.