Replies

Levin is EXACTLY right. Just to reiterate from my post last month on FR:

12/25/2011
My post:

To: shield
“This was changed in May however there is precedent in VA for the court overruling the State Board of Elections rules to allow candidates on the ballot. This is not over.”

I saw John Fund on Fox & Friends this morning talking about this situation. He said this is going to go to court and the court will come down on the side of “the voters” (as it always has) therefore, Perry and Newt will wind up on the ballot.

84posted on Sunday, December 25, 2011 9:51:56 PMby Matchett-PI
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2825002/posts?page=84#84

Virginia May Have Improperly Excluded Signatures From Perry, Gingrich. a Recount May Be Needed!
http://www.varight.com/news/virginia-may-have-improperly-excluded-signatures-from-perry-gingrich-a-recount-may-be-needed/

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.”

Virginia 2011 Candidate for Legislature has Impact on Pres. Primary (Newt & Perry have a case?)
Ballot Access News ^ | 12-25-2011 | Richard Winger
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2825002/posts

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.

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HillBuzz 12/26/2011

Comments section:
http://hillbuzz.org/hillbuzz-open-thread-boxing-day-2011-2011#idc-container

Layla · 4 hours ago

.......People in Virginia are abuzz with the news that Rick Perry’s and Newt Gingrich’s names will not appear on the primary ballot. There will be only two candidates for whom to vote: Ron Paul and Mitt Romney. Write-ins are not allowed in the Virginia primary. The Virginia GOP, which is responsible for verifying signature petitions, is going to catch a lot of flak over this, since this is the first year the signatures have been fully verified - by either the DNC or the RNC. This is also the first year that the voting rolls have been computerized, so it was not as painstaking to verify signatures in previous years. Also noteworthy, though, is that this is the first year the strict rules for getting on the ballot are going to be enforced. Ever since the Dems changed the rules in 1999 to make it harder to get on the ballot, the rules have not been enforced. In fact, the DNC has given waivers to its candidates who did not obtain enough signatures. I would not want to be manning the RNC phones this week.

Kevin DuJan · 3 hours ago

The RNC’s phones should receive Hell all week. Absolute Hell. Something tells me we need to help make that happen.

Layla · 2 hours ago

I am in a wait-and-see mode, Kevin. There is no doubt the RPV is in tight with the elitist Republicans. The Lt. Gov. of Virginia is Romney’s campaign chair and personally delivered his petitions. No judge in Virginia is appointed due to legal accument or adherence to the U.S. or State Constitutions - they are appointed based on their efforts to get the appointer elected. From what I have been able to glean from research, the minimum number is signatures is 10,000 with at least 400 signatures from each of the 11 districts. BUT, if you turn in over 15,000 signatures, they are not verified. Romney and Paul did. ..... Romney started collecting signatures this past summer. Ron Paul started gathering signatures in September. Bachmann, Santorum, and Huntsman did not even try to get on the ballot in Virginia. Perhaps it is not a battleground state after all.

Lady Penguin says:
2011/12/26 at 8:23 am

.....I live in Virginia. Everyone is making a big deal about Newt, but the Perry situation is also noteworthy. Jerry Kilgore, his Va. campaign manager, is a former Va. Attorney General (2001-2005), also ran for governor in 2005 but lost to Democrat Tim Kaine. He should have known, and paid close attention.

That said, the GOP looks bad with this…and have made Va. irrelevant in the primaries. Many people will stay home and not vote if the choices are Romney and Paul. The establishment ignores the fact that McCain got as “many” votes as he did because of Sarah on the ballot – without her, his loss would have been far greater. IOW, we’re not just going to go for Romney…

bttt