Posted on 12/25/2011 4:41:06 PM PST by smoothsailing
December 25th, 2011
There are currently many news stories and blog discussions about the Virginia presidential primary ballot access law. Some large blogs, such as Red State, have over 300 comments about the story. Some defend the current Virginia ballot access laws on the grounds that in past presidential elections, a fairly large number of Republican presidential primary candidates managed to qualify.
But what has not been reported is that in the only other presidential primaries in which Virginia required 10,000 signatures (2000, 2004, and 2008) the signatures were not checked. Any candidate who submitted at least 10,000 raw signatures was put on the ballot. In 2000, five Republicans qualified: George Bush, John McCain, Alan Keyes, Gary Bauer, and Steve Forbes. In 2004 there was no Republican primary in Virginia. In 2008, seven Republicans qualified: John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, and Alan Keyes.
The only reason the Virginia Republican Party checked the signatures for validity for the current primary is that in October 2011, an independent candidate for the legislature, Michael Osborne, sued the Virginia Republican Party because it did not check petitions for its own members, when they submitted primary petitions. Osborne had no trouble getting the needed 125 valid signatures for his own independent candidacy, but he charged that his Republican opponent’s primary petition had never been checked, and that if it had been, that opponent would not have qualified. The lawsuit, Osborne v Boyles, cl 11-520-00, was filed in Bristol County Circuit Court. It was filed too late to be heard before the election, but is still pending. The effect of the lawsuit was to persuade the Republican Party to start checking petitions. If the Republican Party had not changed that policy, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry would be on the 2012 ballot.
The Democratic Party of Virginia has been opposed to the strict law on primary ballot access, and has been in the habit of collecting signatures for all Democratic presidential candidates recognized by the party. In 2008, the state party collected 7,300 signatures for all its candidates, thus easing the burden on them and requiring them to collect only 4,000 to 5,000 on their own.
While the situation in VA develops, what about these candidates getting on the ballot in the other 49 states? What sort of progress is being made there?
Rombot and Paulbot cronies need not apply!
Heck why not just open up the phone book and copy names or even make copies of some pages? Someone wasn't thinking.
Yea, but then couldn’t Romney and Paul sue and say they didn’t meet the criteria?
VA state election laws require address verification for people running for state-wide office, not for people running for national office. The RPV chose to, for the first time, validate federal petitioners’ addresses which is not required.
The part where the RPV ‘suggested’ 15K or more signatures, rather than the required 10K signatures implies they needed cover for enforcing something they’d never enforced before.
Newt and Rick met election laws of VA, just not the *very recently* illegal enforcement of signatures the RPV tossed out for ‘precedent’ when the Osborne case is heard.
Absolutely! But we're talking about The Stupid Party, here. Will the the party decide to find a way to get them on the ballot or will they subject themselves to a court challenge where they know they're going to lose?
I don’t think this is over yet.
Romney and Virginia’s Lt. Governor Bill Bolling who is Romney’s Virginia campaign chair along with Romney supporters verifying Newt and Perry’s sigs cast an obvious move to make sure these delegates go to Romney. It’s obvious Romney can’t win a fair election so with criminal intent this was done.
If the VA LSM wants any more ad buys in their state, they need to make this go away tonight. Before the good conservatives of VA toss their idiot GOP ‘leaders’ out of windows.
BTW, who is trying to kill our primaries? My money’s on Ron Paul.
So you guys are all saying it would be ok if someone that needed 10k signatures just had a bunch of fake names? That nobody should bother to check the signatures? What about our fight to stop the libs from doing the exact same thing in elections? Should we not check them either? Anyone that can’t get 10k valid signatures in a state the size of VA shouldn’t be on the ballot, and why would the Gingrich campaign submit ones without addresses? THEY are the ones that should have checked these to make sure they were ok. And NO I am NOT a Romney supporter, I’d like to see Santorum come on strong if Sarah remains on the outside.
Romney can’t win a fair election so with criminal intent this was done.
My bad; typo.
I’d be willing to bet you a nice dinner that both Perry and Gingrich
end up being on the GOP primary ballot in Virginia.
The Va GOP has nothing to gain and everything to lose by disqualifying them.
Is this enough ground for letting Newt & Perry? I mean, if the rule is there, that the previous administration didn’t check it doesn’t negate the current checking, does it? Isn’t it like we complain when the bouncer starts to look at the IDs?
Some analysts attribute this to differences in dialects ~ others to ignorance. Most likely it was simple illiteracy.
I hope you're right. It'd be sweet to see Willard whine about it, just like he whined whenever someone challenged him in the debates, or when an interviewer asked some tough questions.
You:”I’m in Virginia - you can imagine how *I* feel! :-/”
NO
It makes me mad and I live in Texas.
I cannot imagine how a Virginian would feel - sux
The Mitbots are going to lose this one aren't they ~ and all those delegate positions will have to be assigned to Perry and Gingrich (provided they complain).
But what is best is this will unveil the secret identities of the Mitbots in our state government. Cooch wins. Allen loses. McDonnell loses. The Lt. Governor loses. Bunch of guys in the legislature lose.
All good stuff.
To say that if a candidate submits 15,000 names would be opening this up to all kinds of fraud.
Heck why not just open up the phone book and copy names or even make copies of some pages? Someone wasn’t thinking.
You nailed it. I can see Romney’s smirking face now.
He reminds me of Eddie Haskell on Leave it to Beaver.
And notice Perry didn’t step into this trap and go on the offensive about it. He knew it’d iron itself out and if he HAD, the Lt. Gov could call him out on interfering with states’ issues.
VA GOP looks pretty stupid about now, and will be the posterboys for how candidates get SELECTED, not elected.
They had to know this would unravel back on them.
“Newt and Rick met election laws of VA, just not the *very recently* illegal enforcement of signatures the RPV tossed out “
Enough of that bull about the RPV.
The STATE Board of Elections told ALL candidates for the primary- Republican, Democrat and Independent:
“[The petition] ...Must be signed by not less than 10,000 qualified voters in
Virginia, including at least 400 qualified voters from each of
Virginias eleven congressional districts, who attest that they
intend to participate in the primary of the same political party
as the candidate named on the petition.
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.
Must provide the true signature, the printed full name and the
full resident address of each qualified voter and the date each
signed the petition.
Although the last four digits of the social security number is
requested, it is not mandatory that it be provided...”
THAT’S WHAT THE STATE- not the RPV- TOLD ALL CANDIDATES.
A link to the STATE site where the info can be verified: http://www.sbe.virginia.gov/cms/Cidate_Information/Cidate_Bulletins_Forms.htm
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