A political opponent’s allegations that Ben Miranda was dishonest on election petitions could prove troublesome for the former lawmaker’s legal career.

Carnella Hardin,  who is running against Miranda to represent the 5^th District of the Maricopa County Community College District, said she is “almost 100 percent” certain she is going to file a complaint with the State Bar of Arizona by Friday, alleging that Miranda falsely certified that he gathered petition signatures that someone else collected.

Hardin, of Phoenix, filed a complaint making the same allegations with the Maricopa County Elections Department, but it is going nowhere because she missed the deadline for filing it in Superior Court, the proper  venue for election challenges, said Jerry Cobb, spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.

The bar complaint, however, could pose a bigger problem for Miranda, a lawyer since 1984.

Karen Clark, an attorney who defends lawyers in State Bar discipline cases, said Hardin’s allegations could fall under a rule in which it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to “engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.”

“The Supreme Court and the State Bar take dishonesty allegations very, very seriously,” Clark said.

Miranda, a Phoenix Democrat, served in the Arizona House from 2003 to 2010 and is a member of the Phoenix Union High School District governing board.  He did not immediately return a call to his law office seeking comment and his voice mail on his cell phone was full and could accept no messages.

Hardin’s complaint filed with the elections department said she tracked down five of Miranda’s petition signers who stated they were shown a photo of Miranda and he wasn’t the person who obtained  their signatures.

“There were two young ladies that were canvassing our neighborhood and they were requesting signatures for this gentleman to be on the ballot,” said Phoenix resident Mary Blanchard in an interview with the Arizona Capitol Times. She was one of the five voters who signed declarations for Hardin’s complaint.

Clark said rules of professional conduct are designed mostly to protect the consumer and not punish lawyers for misconduct, so a lawyer’s first offense can be addressed with a diversion program if it was a mistake.  But dishonesty carries major consequences.

“You’re on the fast track to a sanction,” Clark said.

Hardin said she became suspicious of Miranda when she heard he was seen at a convenience store collecting signatures and not asking anyone if they were a resident or registered voter.

“With that being said, I wondered how legitimate are the signatures,” said Hardin, who is running for political office for the first time. A friend of Hardin’s tracked down the people who said Miranda wasn’t the one who collected their signatures.

Hardin, who retired in May after working  for 27 years as a business professor for Glendale Community College, said she didn’t file a lawsuit challenging the petitions because she didn’t want to be portrayed as being vindictive or going to any lengths to win.

But she filed her complaint with the elections department to bring the issue to light because a board member has to be honest and she intends to file the Bar complaint because his “hands need to be slapped for what he’s doing.”