Here’s a confirming report on it:
Delegate hopeful Michael Osborne files lawsuit
Oct 25, 2011
Excerpt:
BRISTOL, Va. – Claiming the state’s election laws treat independent candidates like himself unfairly, Michael Osborne filed a lawsuit on Monday challenging how Virginia reviews its candidate petitions and asking a judge to remove his opponent’s name from the ballot in next month’s election.
“The way [state election officials] deal with the signatures on those petitions is discriminatory to independent candidates,” said Osborne, an independent candidate who is running for the Virginia House of Delegates 5th District seat in the Nov. 8 election.
In the lawsuit, which Osborne filed in the Bristol Virginia Circuit Court, the independent candidate asks a judge to issue an injunction removing Republican Israel O’Quinn’s name from the ballot because the review process Boyles conducted of his qualifying petitions was inadequate.
Osborne’s lawsuit also asks a judge to bar the defendants, 5th District Chairman Brandon Boyles and Donald Palmer, secretary of the Virginia Board of Elections, from certifying any candidates until they have developed “a standardized qualification process that can be checked to ensure fair and equal application of the law.”
According to the state’s election laws, candidates seeking a seat in the state house of delegates must collect signatures from at least 125 registered voters who live in the district they hope to represent to get their names on the ballot in an upcoming election.
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.
According to the law, independent candidates must submit their petitions to the local registrar’s office so that a person can review them and make sure each signature came from someone who lives inside the district and is registered to vote.
Any signature that fails to meet either one of these qualifications is disqualified, as are any signatures that have been collected by someone who lives outside the district or isn’t registered to vote. The names of candidates who fail to meet the 125-signature-requirement after this review are not placed on the ballot.
However, people seeking the Republican or Democratic Party’s nomination for a particular office must simply turn their petitions over to their local party officials who are then responsible for reviewing each signature and making sure it follows the rules.
Any candidate who submits a set of petitions to the local party chairman, in this case 5th District GOP Chairman Brandon Boyles, deems legitimate is added to the ballot in a primary election. The winner of this primary is then declared the party’s nominee and is added to the ballot in the general election.
Jim,
read the article linked at post #21...
The section of Virginia code dealing with Presidential Primaries
does not include a requirement to collect addresses of signers
like the code section dealing with state and local elections does.