Posted on 12/24/2011 1:01:00 PM PST by Steelfish
Gingrich’s Ballot Miss Could Shake Voters’ Confidence
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE December 24, 2011
Newt Gingrich declared confidently the other day that he would get his name on the ballot for the Republican presidential primary in Virginia. In fact, he said he already had the requisite 10,000 signatures and an additional 2,000 to 3,000 for safety’s sake and would probably collect even more. Related
But that turned out not to be the case. In the wee hours of Saturday morning, the Virginia Republican Party announced via Twitter that Mr. Gingrich had failed to submit enough signatures by the Thursday deadline, highlighting the organizational challenges to his campaign and raising questions about his prospects in a drawn-out nominating fight.
Many of the Gingrich campaign’s signatures were apparently invalid, which is why most campaigns try to collect almost twice as many as needed. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota also failed to make the grade.
The Gingrich campaign said it would work with the Republican Party of Virginia to pursue a write-in campaign, but Virginia does not allow write-in names in its primaries.
“Voters deserve the right to vote for any top contender, especially leading candidates,” Michael Krull, Mr. Gingrich’s campaign director, said in a statement.
This misstep is bad news for Mr. Gingrich on several levels. Virginia is his adopted home state. Failing to gather enough signatures in your own backyard creates an image problem, at the very least.
“It’s a disaster for him,” said Larry J. Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. “This sends yet another signal to Republicans that Gingrich is not able to organize.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
They have never enforced it before, until Myth's people discovered it.
Isn't that special?
you need meds
Newt did not misstep. He did everything they required, in a state that has tailored their rules to give the advantage to the incumbent who has run in prior years. They threw out 2,000 signatures for Newt and Perry on lame technical grounds. (Which they have never done before)
In other words, wake up out of your coma! Newt and Perry did not “Just throw out a big state”. The Big State threw them out, for some highly controversial, and unfounded reasons. And why you fail to question it is very unsettling.
This will start heating up in the coming weeks. It needs to! Or we will lose to the GOP elite again!
It is also rather corrupt that the Lt. Governor is one of Romney's main campaign managers, and the Governor also loaned all sorts of help for Romney to get all the “i’s” dotted and the “T's” crossed months in advance.
Oh yes, we have NOT heard the last of this. Even FOX is starting to mention all this corruption among the Virginia RP.
The addresses are not a valid reason for disqualification.
A voter that has moved has up to a prescribed period before the next election to re-register, so thus the address is irrelevent for signature verification purposes.
The state election officials know this to be true, nevertheless they proceeded with this invalid issue to falsely deny their rights.
It is sad that this cannot be prosecuted in criminal courts.
The deep flaw in your reasoning is that the brokering proceeds behind closed doors.
It can only be done one delegate at a time on the floor.
>> “This is proof that the GOP elite are corrupt.” <<
.
Did we need any more of that?
.
As I said, the worst that happens is we get Willard, who we are going to get anyway.
Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.
And don’t repeat unsourced, unverified anonymous claims from the internet, and call other people “clueless”.
Virginia has no “grandfather” clause for ballot access. Romney and Paul met the signature requirements.
I can guarantee you that if the situation was reversed, and it was Mitt and Gingrich, with Paul out, the Gingrich people would be defending the process, laughing about how stupid Perry was, and rejoicing that the “Paulistas” couldn’t even meet simple ballot requirements.
Heck, some of them were giddy when they found out Perry didn’t qualify, before they learned Gingrich didn’t. Then it was all “foul play”, and “we need to remove the governor from office”, and “people should go to jail”, and “we should occupy the RPV”.
I’m sick that Perry and Gingrich didn’t get on the ballot. But life goes on. Maybe the campaigns can find a way with the RPV to get on the ballot, and I’d be fine with that, but I don’t think they are entitled to it just because their supporters think so.
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