BREAKING: Perry disqualified from Va. primary ballot

washingtonpost.com ^ | 12/23/2011 | Anita Kumar

[TBBT]

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry failed to submit enough valid signatures to qualify for the Virginia primary ballot, state GOP officials said Friday evening.

Perry’s campaign told state election officials it had submitted 11,911 signatures, but a Virginia Republican familiar with the situation said that the Texas governor did not submit the required 10,000.

Earlier Friday, the Republican Party of Virginia certified former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) to appear in the March ballot.

Four candidates — Romney, Perry, Paul and former House speaker Newt Gingrich — turned in thousands of signatures by the deadline. State party officials are spending the day certifying the signataries.

They have not examined Gingrich’s signatures yet, but expected to do so by late Friday night.

Candidates had until 5 p.m. to collect 10,000 signatures from across the state, including 400 from each congressional district.

Republican presidential candidates Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum did not submit signatures, according to state GOP officials

[EDINVA]

Each signature/address on the petitions is cross-checked against the rolls of State voters. RPV doesn’t have to show the signatures are ‘bunk,’ only that they are NOT on the VA voter rolls.

It appears about 1900-2000 (or more) who signed for Perry aren’t registered VA voters, not necessarily 4K. If Perry’s people presented petitions with that many non-VA registered voters, what challenge would there be?

I would imagine the Perry people at RPV will be given an opportunity to check the disqualified signatures by checking themselves vs. those roles. RPV was not going to go out of its way to keep him off the primary ballot.

Even as a Gingrich person, I hope there’s been an error and Perry ends up on the ballot. Right now, tho, it’s not looking that way, but, again, I’ll wait to hear from RPV and not the WaPo.

[deport]

For what it is worth department:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/23/perry-ballot-petition-rejected-in-virginia/

The state party spent Friday verifying that the submitted petitions met the requirements to appear on the ballot. The Virginia GOP said on their Twitter feed Friday that Romney and Paul had both submitted enough signatures to appear on the ballot.

This leaves Gingrich as the one GOP candidate whose position on the Virginia ballot is still in question.

Virginia requires candidates to submit petitions with 10,000 signatures from registered Virginia voters. Additionally, 400 signatures must come from voters in each of the commonwealth’s eleven congressional districts.

end snip

[CharlesWayneCT]

Each candidate submitted a package of signatures. My guess is they just chose one candidate and went through his, and then went to the next candidate.

I’ve heard nothing except about Perry, so I don’t know if they simply aren’t telling us about candidates who qualified, or Perry was the first one they did.

[mylife]

Virginia campaign lawyer Chris Ashby notes, those candidates “who submit 14,999 or fewer, however, will undergo signature-by-signature scrutiny of his or her petitions — something no statewide candidate in recent memory ever has had to endure.”

Oh! so this is all new BS?

Legal challenge!

[CharlesWayneCT]

BTW, in case someone cares, I couldn’t collect my own signature, or those of my family. Someone else would have to witness my signature. Each petition has a witness who testifies that they saw all the signatures put on the paper.

What i wanted was for campaigns to have me meet one of their petition gatherers, sign a petition, and pick one up to circulate. None did. Well, Romney contacted me, and I ignored him.

[mylife]

LoL!

[JediJones]

There isn’t any conspiracy that can prevent someone from getting 15,000 signatures to get on the ballot free and clear. Only a lack of money, a lack of volunteers, a lack of organization or a lack of will.

If Perry has money to run ads in Iowa, he should have had money to get on the ballot in Virginia.

Newt may have been done in by his lack of money and organization.

[itsahoot]

Seems like a version of the poll tax for the elite, doesn’t it?

[SaxxonWoods]

It’s certainly a back door way to help front runners.

[Raider Sam]

It just seems so odd that 3 didnt try, 1 apparently has 16% or more invalid, and another just barely got over 10k, with his to be counted.

If this happened in Iowa, there might be a case that the candidates are banding together to prevent a few states from creating all the momentum and essentially selecting the nominee before larger and more conservative states get to choose. But Va isnt one of the first four.

[CharlesWayneCT]

no. Although I suppose that if there is an anomaly, they might have a way to correct it, the signatures were due when they were due.

[kabar]

Earlier Friday, the Republican Party of Virginia certified former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) to appear on the March ballot.

[mylife]

If its 1 or 200 signatures I expect closer scrutiny of verification.

I would challenge for proof.

[CharlesWayneCT]

I presume they still “count” the signatures, by verifying that each page is filled in, or looking at the number on the last signature, and adding them up.

They simply don’t go back and get the names and addresses and check them against address lists and voter registrations.

I didn’t think you needed to be registered though, just old enough to vote.

[JediJones]

Then in theory they could just check one district before disqualifying. If Perry or Newt just came up with 399 or less in one of the districts, they could stop counting and toss him out.

[mylife]

Funny how it never mentions Perry.

[lonestar]

400 signatures had to come from each congressional district. I read somewhere that it might have been hard for any of them to get that many in some of the heavy Dem districts.

Do you think 400 people in Sheila Jackson Lee's district have ever heard of Rick Perry much less would sign a petition for him?

Sampling shouldn't work on a petition...what if they got the wrong sample?

We recently had a recall petition on city councilmen...it ended up in FEDERAL Court and there were more than required signatures. It took longer to validate 350 signatures than the thousands in VA took...I don't know how many worked on it.

[kabar]

Newt Gingrich’s lack of organization may be his undoing. Although he was the first Republican to declare his presidential candidacy and is well ahead in all the polls, the former Speaker of the House is far behind when it comes to getting people organized on the state level. In fact Gingrich’s organizational problems are so bad that he may not qualify to be on the Ohio ballot.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is set up and ready to go in all 50 states. Romney may not be the most popular of the Republican candidates, but he does have the ground team and money to stick around until the end of the GOP primary season, potentially stealing the nomination away from a more popular, but disorganized candidate like Newt Gingrich.

[hoosiermama]

Sometime the ten thousand is easy. It’s the distribution, 400 in each district, that is more difficult.

[Bear1454]

As an Illinois native, I’d happen to agree. Obozo and his gangsters will pull every dirty trick in the book. Friends, no matter who the republican nominee is, prepare for a long, dirty, ugly campaign 2012.