Clovis abortion vote slowed by signatures

48% of signers of petition needed to bring issue before city voters disqualified; group has 10 days to rectify problems

A petition drive to put Clovis’ anti-abortion clinic ordinance before city voters has been derailed by the disqualification of about 48% of the petition’s signers.

The drive’s organizers, Eastern New Mexico Rising, will have until the middle of next week to get those whose signatures weren’t certified to go to the city clerk’s office to clear up whatever invalidated their signature on the petition.

The Clovis city charter requires the petition include signatures of 20% of the voters who cast ballots in the last municipal election, or 269 in this case.

Clovis is one of several communities in conservative Eastern New Mexico that has considered or passed local measures to restrict abortion recently. Its ordinance aims to stop abortion providers from setting up shop in Clovis by requiring them to follow the 1873 Comstock Act, which prohibits sending any medication or supplies used for abortions through the mail.

Democrats in state government, including state legislators and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, have vowed to block these municipal anti-abortion efforts; a bill that would prohibit ordinances like Clovis’ is working its way through the Roundhouse. State Attorney General Raúl Torrez is also fighting these ordinances in court.

The group submitted 55 petition pages with 449 signatures. On Tuesday, City Clerk Leighann Melancon completed the petition’s certification, disqualifying 216 signers and leaving 233 certified signatures, 36 less than the required 269.

The next day, Eastern New Mexico Rising co-founder Laura Wight received an email from Melancon stating five signers had been moved to “certified.”

Melancon said there are any number of reasons a signature could be “not certified.” A common one is a person signing their nickname, not their birth name.

“Other reasons include not being registered [to vote], not registered within municipal boundaries, not eligible, missing/ incorrect information,” Melancon said.

Melancon said petition drives aren’t that common in Clovis so she doesn’t know if 48% of the signers being “not certified” is a high, low or average percentage.

“There has not been a petition in many years,” Melancon said. “[There’s] nothing to compare to.”

What has to be done if Eastern New Mexico Rising wants to get the ordinance before voters?

Individuals whose signature was purged may present evidence to show that this was done wrongfully. State law gives them 10 days to come to the clerk’s office to present evidence. If that fails, there is an option to proceed through District Court.

State law also requires the clerk publish the name, address and signature of every signer on all the pages of the petition in the area newspaper, so people can see if their signatures were certified or not. That list is scheduled to be published in The Eastern New Mexico News on Wednesday.

Wight said the group is moving forward with the petition drive.

“We are actively working within our 10-day window to ‘flip’ signatures that were declared invalid,” Wight said last week. “We are contacting individuals whose signatures are marked as invalid and letting them know their rights and the process for going in and disputing that with the city clerk.”

Wight said she was surprised at the large number of invalidated signatures.

“We are making every effort possible to rectify that and get enough validated so our petition will be certified and the vote will proceed,” Wight said.