Adam Kokesh has qualified for the New Mexico Republican primary ballot for the U.S. House race, district 3. He did so by collecting a number of additional signatures equal to 2% of the number of votes cast in the 2008 Republican primary for Governor in that district. He had already collected the same number of signatures before the preprimary convention.

If he had been recognized as having received 20% support at the party’s preprimary convention, he would not have needed that second batch of signatures. He got slightly more than 19.5% of the vote at that convention. New Mexico election code section 1-1-20, titled “Major Fractions” says, “In any place in the Election Code requiring counting or computation of numbers, any fraction or decimal greater than one-half of a whole number shall be counted as a whole number.” The Democratic Party of New Mexico this year interpreted that to mean that a candidate at the Democratic convention who got 19.69% of the delegate vote should be deemed to have received 20%, but the Republican Party does not follow the “Major Fractions” law.