Candidates for Farmington mayor, Bloomfield council disqualified by San Juan clerk. Why?

The San Juan County Clerk’s Office has declared two of the people who filed to run for public office earlier this week in November’s general election ineligible, Included is a businessman who planned to run for mayor of Farmington.

County Clerk Tanya Shelby said she sent letters on Aug. 31 to Farmington mayoral candidate Alexander Bryon Chambers and Bloomfield City Council candidate Lucas Aaron Almedia-Barnett informing them they were not qualified to seek the office for which they had filed.

Shelby said Chambers was disqualified because, in order to run for mayor of Farmington, he was required to register to vote in that city by Aug. 9. She said Chambers was registered to vote in Kirtland until Aug. 29, the candidate filing day, when he switched his registration to Farmington while also filing for public office.

Shelby said she spoke with Chambers then and explained to him that she would have to disqualify him for that reason. Chambers’ disqualification apparently means that incumbent Farmington Mayor Nate Duckett will run unopposed for re-election in November.

In an interview with The Daily Times, Chambers said he had filled out a voter registration card with his new Farmington address in February and had given it to a postal worker. He said his assumption is that the card got lost before it reached the New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office, where his registration officially would have been changed.

Chambers said he has no plans to appeal his disqualification in court because he does not want to disrupt the election.

“That’s never been my intent,” he said.

But he said he views the ruling as “unconstitutional and unAmerican, and it infringes on my constitutional rights as an American citizen.”

He also said the experience has not soured him on the possibility of seeking office again in the future.

“Anything and everything I have done as a business owner and entrepreneur, I have relentlessly pursued my targets,” he said, adding that overcoming challenges is a part of that process.

Chambers is the owner of Chambers Steakhouse. He announced his intention to run for mayor in early May and launched a campaign website that includes portals through which supporters could make a donation to volunteer on his behalf. It also includes a brief biography of the candidate and outlines his position on several issues.

Almedia-Barnett, the would-be Bloomfield City Council candidate, was disqualified because he did not register to vote until Aug. 23, two weeks after the deadline required by law, Shelby said. She said she explained that to him on Aug. 29 when he came in to file for office.

Almedia-Barnett did not return a phone call from The Daily Times seeking comment on his disqualification.

Shelby said both candidates can challenge their disqualification in court, and she encourages any candidate who has been disqualified to do so. She said her office’s website includes a list of candidate qualification requirements, and it clearly spells out the deadline for being registered to vote in the proper district by the deadline.

Neither candidate is eligible to apply to be a write-in candidate, she said, explaining that the requirement to be a registered voter in the district by Aug. 9 applies equally to candidates who have filed for office and those who wish to run as write-ins.

Shelby said the disqualifications are unfortunate, and she doesn’t enjoy telling any candidate he or she will not have their name on the ballot.

“We want everybody to be on the ballot, but this is the law,” she said.

Shelby said the last time she had to disqualify a candidate was in the 2020 election cycle when there was a discrepancy on a candidate’s petitions that led to the ruling. She said she encourages all potential political candidates to visit with her or a member of her staff well before the filing date to make sure they understand all the requirements they face to be eligible, thus avoiding any late disappointment.

“Let us look up their registration and their paperwork and see if it’s in order,” she said. “But we always have candidates who don’t call.”

The full list of candidates who have registered and qualified for the November election is available on the County Clerk’s Office website at sjcounty.net.

Mike Easterling can be reached at 505-564-4610 or measterling@daily-times.com. Support local journalism with a digital subscription: http://bit.ly/2I6TU0e.

This article originally appeared on Farmington Daily Times: San Juan County clerk disqualifies two candidates from 2023 election