This is the undated letter.
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.
Virginia May Have Improperly Excluded Signatures From Perry, Gingrich. a Recount May Be Needed!
“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”
Hmmmmmmmm, I did not know that. IMHO that puts a new light on things. Maybe there is a way out of the madness at least for Perry and Newt. I am not sure if the others submitted 10,000 signature.
Thanks. Just hit the same confirming article with google. +bn
The guy misspells the name ~ just shows you how horribly illiterate some of the highlanders were in the good old days.
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Now, you’re just showing how ignorant you are TODAY!!! McDonnell is the Scottish spelling for his name just like O’Donnell is the Irish spelling. It’s a perfectly good Scottish name. Now, try to post something more substantive.
I’m no fan of Romney, Gingrich, or Perry.
That the Gingrich and Perry organizations didn’t bother to collect signatures to the level where they could stand scrutiny (and that’s the name of the game for petitions like this) regardless of the Osborne case.
It bugs me that McDonnell doesn’t weigh in and that he can be seen as possibly not being even-handed.
Well you don’t have to get snippy about it.
The following is the key in this case as I see it.
....
But the rules independent candidates must follow when reviewing their petitions differ greatly from those party-affiliated candidates like Osborne’s opponent, Republican Israel O’Quinn, must follow in order to get their names on the ballot. It’s this difference that lies at the heart of Osborne’s suit.......
The above from the link JimRob posted in #20.
The GOP primary election qualification is all within the party and not involving independents or some other parties nominees. Now the reasoning maybe valid to use for the process within the party. What was the outcome of this case since it was filed back in Oct. Has it had a court hearing or resolution as of yet?
“Oh, gee, we didn’t know the state party changed the policy because they got sued!”
So? That’s exactly the reason you have state and local campaign organizations. So that you have folks who know the area, know the players, and keep abreast of what’s happening in the area that might affect the campaign. That’s exactly the reason you pay lawyers good money. So that you have folks who keep an eye on the election statutes and case law and regs. So that you know stuff like this is coming down before the filing deadline and send guys out to get more sigs. So that you’re NOT standing there with your thumb up your bum after you get disqualified going “waitwutthatain’tfayerrrrrr...” Things like that are exactly the boring minutiae you need to take care of if you’re running a serious campaign. You know, the kind of thing That Woman was getting hazed pretty mercilessly around here for not getting handled. Well, what were the “serious” campaigns doing all those months? Because it really doesn’t appear as if they were getting prepared to handle it, either.
Stuff like this doesn’t really make me think “Oh, you poor things, your candidates got screwed.” No, it makes me think “I already thought your guys were sloppy. Now I think they’re complete flippin’ amateurs.”
"Virginia May Have Improperly Excluded Signatures From Perry, Gingrich. a Recount May Be Needed!
Posted on 25 December 2011.
I’m no attorney but I do know how to find and read the laws of Virginia.
Various reports have stated that the signatures turned in by Newt Gingrich included at least 2,000 that were invalidated because there was no address given with the signature.
If this were a Virginia Statewide office, that would be correct. But this is a Presidential Primary. And while the rules are similar, they are actually addressed in two separate sections of the Virginia Code.
There is a requirement in a Statewide General Election that the address be included, but there is no such requirement for a presidential primary. The number of signatures are the same, 10,000 and 400 per Congressional District. But the address requirements are different."
Thanks for the post. The story you link to points out the possible different standards that may apply to state and federal elections. Another factor in primaries is the standards political parties set for themselves. This also looks like a factor in the Osborne case.
Does anybody know why the signatures were rejected? Does anybody even know if and how many ballots were rejected for missing addresses? It seems that you would first need to know why the ballots were rejected to make a determination about whether the “rejections” were valid.
The VA GOP published a letter that announced that any candidate who submitted a petition with more than 15,000 signatures would not be checked (’shall be deemed to have met the threshold for qualification and will be certified’).
The letter is at http://www.rpv.org/sites/default/files/2012%20Petition%20Certification%20Process_1.pdf
Romney submitted 16,000 signatures. Newt submitted 12,000.
I am curious to know when the VA GOP invented the 15K Safe Harbor rule. The letter from the VA GOP is undated (which is itself curious). The PDF file contains a hidden Microsoft Word creation date of 12/21/2011.
Why wouldn’t they check signatures?
Very peculiar.
Thanks for posting. :)
Then this was a false alarm all the way around. But who wanted the alarm to sound? And why?
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So what this guy is saying is that if you get 15,000 signature they don’t check for forgeries.. Obviously the problem is they needed to forge another 3,000 signatures.
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