“For example, it is silly to take the VBE “guidance” to collect 15,000 signatures”
There is no “guidance” to collect 15,000 signatures.
For evidence I will refer you to CharlesWayneCT’s post regarding the State Bd of Elections.
“Because many people who are not registered to vote will sign a petition, it is recommended that 15,000 - 20,000 signatures be obtained with at least 700 signatures from each congressional district.”
You will note that your deflection from the VAGOP’s old and new rules is a huge FAIL. There is nothing here that changes the facts of what transpired within the VaGop in what you posted. It is a simple “RECOMMENDATION”.
Got it?
The law states that 10,000 is the number.
In elections in 08 and 10 and a few prior that that, the rule set forth by the VaGop clearly stated 10,000 was the number of signatures required.
No review of signatures has happened with the 10,000 being the number required.
Now, there is a letter out from VaGop stating that 15,000 is the new number to avoid review.
You can deny this all you want. But it is what happened and it is the truth. They changed the rules late in the game, to delete both Gingrich and Perry from the ballot.
End of story, unless you have additional information that negates what has happened.
I’m not sure why you think that a “recommendation” is not “guidance”. If it makes you feel better, substitute “recommendation” where I use the word “guidance”.
Since that was part of my post where I was trying to agree with your angst over the current rules, I cannot fathom why you chose to attack THAT part.
You still haven’t shown actual evidence that there were old and new “rules”, not that I ever said there was or wasn’t, just that the LAW itself has been in effect for a while now. You can keep shifting the argument around, but it doesn’t help to understand what you are arguing.
The law states that you need 10,000 signatures. The VBE, not the RPV, issued a direction to all the campaigns back in MAY telling them they needed 10,000 signatures, and recommending they get 15,000 to 20,000. The RPV didn’t make up the rule that you needed 10,000 signatures. The VBE also said that addresses were required — again, that wasn’t something the RPV made up, that was in the VBE memo to all the candidates.
If the VBE was wrong to say addresses were needed, that was the fault of the VBE, not the RPV.
The RPV, in order to try to make the process a LITTLE EASIER for the candidates, decided that if you submitted the VBE-recommended 15,000 signatures, they would ASSUME the signatures were correct, and wouldn’t check them.
Oddly, many here are arguing that the RPV should have accepted 10,000 signatures without checking them, but are upset that they let 15,000 signatures go unchecked. I think it’s a good argument that all signatures should be checked, but if you are arguing that NO signatures should be checked, it’s hard to take seriously a complaint that at 15,000, they stop checking the signatures. It’s a DIFFERENT argument.
If your argument is that the RPV failed to check signatures before, so it’s unfair to check them now, that is a stupid argument. We didn’t check voter ID before, and now conservatives are pushing voter ID laws around the country. If the law says we are supposed to submit signatures for actual registered voters, and that the RPV is responsible for verifying the information, then there is nothing WRONG with the RPV taking that job seriously.
If they WANT to take it unseriously at this point, that will work out well for our candidates, but it is absurd to attack them for taking the law seriously. It wasn’t a surprise, the VBE gave the candidates the rules back in May — 10,000 VALID signatures. If the candidates were hoping nobody would check the signatures, they may have had some reason to hope that, but no legal basis for expecting it.
Now, rather than continuing to just assert your same assumptions again and again, why don’t you find an actual link to the 2008 RPV rules that say that they will NOT verify the signatures? I’ve seen several people say that, but I’ve not seen any actual evidence for it.