Posted on 12/24/2011 10:37:52 AM PST by Jim Robinson
~~snip~~
"A Gingrich campaign official prior to the move by the Republican Party of Virginia said the problem is how the rules are set up, arguing that the party is, for apparently the first time, cross-checking the addresses that signature-givers gave against the electronic voter database file for accuracies. A name without a proper address match was tossed, the official said."
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Basically yeah. Romney and Ron Paul got over 15,000 so they're in without any scrutiny. Below is the last paragraph of the letter from the Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia:
If any candidate submits fewer than 15,000 signatures of registered voters on valid petitions statewide or fewer than 600 signatures of registered voters on valid petitions in one or more of the 11 Congressional Districts, the Republican Party of Virginia will individually verify signatures until the 10,000 signature statewide threshold and/or 400 per Congressional district is met.
Over 15K and you are golden, no checking.
I did, my man was Cain.
Now I’m out.
It’ll be up to the Newt supporters to pull him over the finish line.
Good luck.
here is what I dont get... if the sigs are not checked when they have turned in more than 15,000.... how do they know they there are more than 600 from each district?
That’s ridiculous. You fill petition forms with fake names and addresses (or you copy them out of the phone book), and as long as you fill enough lines on the forms, no one will question that all the names were signed by the same person.
Ben you make some good points, I too hated the Alaskan shenanigans, but here is what bothers me in this case:
First, if it is true that merely turning in 15,000 names is all that is needed, what prevents someone from fabrication, since no one is checking? Speaking of checking, who was checking the checkers?
Second, Is it not important whether the database is accurate or not? Shouldn't someone actually make an effort to examine discrepancies, and determine whether the form or the database is actually correct before tossing them?
Third, The law actually states that write ins have to be accepted for elections. Sure it makes an exception for primaries, but does not specifically prohibit primary write ins.
Fourth, when either party makes rules to restrict what the majority of the voters want so that insiders can limit the choices, shouldn't the voters at least work to have the rules reviewed? After all the people are sovereign not the party.
The letter says it is the Republican Party of Virgina doing the checking of names and addresses, not the state.
So presumably Newt would have to sue the Virgina GOP.
I’m pretty sure all candidates sign agreements with their respective parties to specifically prohibit intra-party litigation of that type. Presumably there is some sort of ‘Rules Committee’ in the GOP to handle this sort of thing.
CainConservative;Michele Bachmann; Rick Santorum
If the poll you offered has any validity at all, I would like to point out that Santorum and Bachmann together have 44 percent of the voter preference. This is sizably more than any other candidate, and a largely overlapping population. How many tea party or religious conservatives really want to vote for the serial polygamist or the person who believes he will one day be a god? Plainly speaking, not that many. The GOP needs to consider that it should not offer any candidate to the public at large which can not energize a quarter to a third of its base on a consistent basis. By what rationale do they assume that such a person will magically get 50 percent of the general populace (or a majority of the electoral votes.
I would appeal to the Bachmann and Santorum camps to do some soul searching and talking and merge behind one of these two.
Mhy personal opinion, which may be worth little, is to ask the hard thing of Bachmann’s camp, as she has more of the polls, and ask her to step behind Santorum. I know enough otherwise rational people who fear their perception of the Tea Party and view her as strident (you know how a strong man is viewed as strong, but a strong woman is strident) or completely fanatical - to the point that they mention emigration (I know, some might say good riddance...). Then there are whole camps of fundamentalists who will talk about what it means when the leader of the people is a woman... These are not editorial comments, but things that I think impact real voters in real ways.
To my way of thinking, recent articles about the Santorums’ dealing with the death of their baby aside, there is not the general feeling of alienation against him due to his perceived right wing-ness, and he would be the more electable candidate.
All that said, I would vote for either one of these over the rest of the pack, and have the highest regard for the one who sacrificed the attempt hereafter.
Meanwhile, we are doing in the primary what we say we are trying to prevent in the general election, splitting the conservative vote so that a not so conservative (at best) gets the win.
Just my two cents.
Now if it is true that none of the candidates qualified, but two who were grandfathered in, there is a real problem with the system, and I am not sure that equal application of the laws is being seen here - unless maybe McCain ends back on the ballot?
Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee say "You must vote for Mitt Rom-nee!"
Ok, Thanks for the clarification. Too bad. I am not a Virginian or a lawyer, but I would file suit, if I could too.
The rules of the game were in writing for anyone to read. Both Newt and Perry should have hired people who understood the consequences and had taken action to offset their signature gathering and verification procedures accordingly. If they needed 20,000 to be sure of qualifying, that is what they should have submitted.
Said failure is indicative of their lack of both management skills and organizational depth, the latter being indicative of the need to chase polling numbers in early primary states.
In a way, this is yet again an indictment of the MSM, for which there is no excuse on the part of the candidates.
Democracy looks very different from the bottom than the top. Like I said, most don’t have experience dealing with it. You name it, the shenanigans come out to prevent people from upsetting the apple cart.
The end result seems to do their best to deny the people their choice.
As for your questions. I’ve worked in quality control, for a bunch of different organizations. Random sampling is what is frequently used. If errors turn up in the random samples, then they can use these samples to calculate with some precision how many errors exist throughout the whole sample.
They can do this with petition signatures. They will not check all the numbers, but they will check a certain number of random samples, to see if there is any errors. A clean sample, you’ll expect to see around 10 percent fail validation, because there’s simply no way to check them other than validation.
As for the database, a rate of 20 percent failure isn’t going to be overturned by database errors. A percent or two at most. It might be enough to get Newt back on the ballot, but that’s assuming all the errors made are against him.
As for the party rules, well, that’s why you go to the long and boring meetings back in 2009 in the VA republican party where they vote on these rules beforehand. The party bosses are the ones who decide, and wrt nominations, they have pretty much carte blanche. That’s the way the system works. If you aren’t a party member, you don’t have a say as to how the party selects their members.
To change the rules, would mean that enough VA GOP members would have to speak up their dissatisfaction with the primary results. If you aren’t a VA GOP member, then there’s really not much you can do in this situation. But, there’s nothing stopping people from getting memberships and going to all the meetings, and most importantly, voting.
Well said.
The economy is so bad under Obama, they couldn't afford to stay in their houses ... just sayin' .....
Seems to me that the conservatives need to do at least 2 things:
First, if they really want this changed this year swamp the party leadership, and/or a legal challenge.
Second, Get on the ballot as precinct chairmen in all the districts, win, and replace the GOP leadership with conservatives.
I can't help but think this is the establishment Pubs (DC is right across the street) making sure the candidates that are most likely to tear down the govt hegemony are handicapped in getting the nomination. I think they don't consider Paul a threat and Romney is a go along get along blue blood technocrat so he's "their guy". Gingrich although he's from the DC culture has been clear he would make big changes and Perry has been specific about changing DC as well.
These disqualifications give legitimatcy to the idea that the Republican party establishment is out of touch with its grass roots supporters.
Good luck with that GOP.
We're all watching.
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BLESSED AND MERRY CHRISTmas everyone!!!!
That’s the exact course of action.
I have to caution people, again, that it’s the VA folks that get to decide, because the state parties have this jurisdiction.
A state party requirement like this would generally favor the conservative candidate, provided the rules are applied equally. Especially the district requirement. This isn’t exactly a liberal rule.
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