SANTA FE, N.M.— September 18, 2026—The U.S. Supreme Court on September 17 rejected the NM Forward Party’s appeal to place our two statewide candidates on the ballot, which means that former State Representative Bob Perls and former CFO for APS Michael Vigil will not be able to run in 2026 for the U.S. Senate and State Auditor, respectively.
“So, after months of litigation and thousands of dollars and man-hours spent, we are back to square one with a court case in U.S. District Court to be heard in the coming months. But we heard loud and clear from tens of thousands of New Mexicans who talked to our volunteers and our candidates and signed our petitions that they want more and better options at the voting booth going forward. The party is not over; it is just beginning,” said Bob Perls, Chairman of the Forward Party.
The Forward Party summarized the three main issues that are being contested and are still in play for a full court hearing at the U.S. District Court in Santa Fe. Only the appeal for immediate ballot placement was ruled upon by the courts.
“Modicum of Support”
A “modicum of support” is legal speak for wanting to make sure that frivolous candidates are not on the ballot and that all candidates have shown some threshold of support to be able to appear on the ballot. The problem is that the Secretary of State never defined what that means other than citing the fact that our statewide candidates did not turn in the number of signatures the legislature requires by statute. As described in our filings, we would have to submit 10 separate petitions containing 131,361 signatures just to run a full slate of candidates for statewide office, plus additional petitions and additional signatures for every other office.
“Congested, confusing ballots”
This is the other primary argument the Secretary of State made, not just with our party, but with other independent candidates this election cycle—that these very high signature numbers are required to keep the ballot from filling up with too many candidates, leading to a crowded and confusing ballot. But once again, the SOS failed to show a single example of where there was a crowded ballot in New Mexico’s recent history. In fact, since the 2002 election, only once were there three candidates in a statewide race, and most of the time for all offices during this time there were two candidates or fewer for each office. In fact, as we pointed out in the lawsuit, over half of all State House races in 2026 have NO competition, with only one candidate. There are no crowded ballots in New Mexico. The opposite is the problem—there is too little competition up and down the ballot for a healthy democracy.
“Double Petitioning
Requirement”
Utah and Colorado both have the Forward Party as a qualified party, just like New Mexico. In these neighboring states, once a minor party candidate for the Forward Party is nominated by the party, they are automatically on the ballot. This is how every state in the union works except New Mexico. We have a double petitioning requirement where we qualified as a party in May of this year by turning in 5,500 signatures, and then our candidates, after being nominated by the party at a convention, had to turn in another round of personal signatures amounting to nearly six times the number required of major party candidates for statewide office.
Our argument is that the statute that forces a dual signature requirement hurts New Mexico voters by limiting choice. It is just another hoop designed to make it harder for non-major parties to compete. And once again, New Mexico is first in the bad stuff and last in the good stuff. We are the only state erecting these kinds of unconstitutional barriers to running for office.
Our Attorney General, Raúl Torrez, agreed with this assessment when he opposed the Secretary of State’s interpretation and enforcement of these unconstitutional barriers to competition by submitting to the courts a brief in support of our position earlier this week. We deeply appreciate his thoughtful analysis.