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This episode in Virginia proves something that should have been obvious, but obviously, and significantly, wasn't:

Petition signatures with a real signature check ≠ Petition signatures without one.

In previous years the same number of signatures were required, but not much checking was done. This year, because of a pending law suit, Virginia's GOP actually validated the signatures submitted to them. In previous years candidates at all levels, including for presidential primaries, had no problem submitting "enough" signatures. This year, even though they were told about the pending validation in November, savvy experienced politicians failed to qualify even when they had the advantages of long time Virginia residence (Gingrich) or a Texas sized pile of cash to spend (Perry.) The proportion of false signatures their operations collected was obviously much greater than they'd expected. Three more failed signature collectors - Santorum, Bachmann, and Huntsman - joined the Virginia AG in trying to modify the result. They hadn't reached 10k signatures so didn't submit any. Whether they couldn't get to 10k by any collection standard and thus were too weak to have passed the old, without signature checking, standard, or whether they'd been more careful in recognition of the new standard and prescreened their own collections isn't currently known.

I'm no lawyer, and certainly not an election law specialist. Whether this change from de facto ignoring the law regarding signature validity previously to now following that law as written constitutes a 'violation' of the law allowing for 'legal' redress requires a level of mental agility I happily lack. But as a matter of common sense, which should also mean as matter of policy this should prove there is a significant difference between the two methods and that different levels of signature collection are appropriate under the two methods. And this proof that signature fraud is both real and common should also invalidate those who claim voter fraud is rare and insignificant. If the level of signature fraud can surprise such elite, experienced politicians as Gingrich and Perry why should be accept the claims of elite experienced politicians like Obama and friends regarding voter fraud?

See my post #27. Here's the constitutional issue and the basis of the complaint and the Perry suit, as I see it [and I'm not a lawyer either! :)]....

This action seeks a declaratory judgment asserting that certain provisions of Virginia Code section 24.2-545 B are unconstitutional, as well as injunctive relief enjoining the collective defendants from enforcing the requirement that nomination petition circulators be either eligible or registered voters in the Commonwealth of Virginia and compelling the collective defendants to certify him as a candidate for the Republican Party. presidential primary ballot.

...this change from de facto ignoring the law regarding signature validity previously to now following that law as written constitutes a 'violation' of the law...

You are "making stuff up" so I assume it was your candidate (Romney) and his co-conspirators exposed...

There is no "law as written" are you referring to. Here are the two in question...

§ 24.2-506 is the VA code for the procedure of collecting petitions for any STATE office...
§ 24.2-545 is the VA code for the procedure of collecting petitions for any Presidential Primary...

The first law requires a "resident address" of the voter. The second law does not. Feel free to click on those and check!
The first law requires a petition's witness to be "qualified to register to vote, for the office for which he is circulating the petition" and the 2nd law does not.
For Presidential petitions, the gatherer/witness could be from Mars, it is not a requirement "by law".

But the RPV and State Board illegally chose to treat those as "required by law items" by strongly enforcing them starting this year, making it doubly hard to get enough signatures.

But what is worse and possibly illegal, is that on Tuesday Dec 20th, Romney's campaign manager, Bolling turned in 16,021 signatures to the RPV. So then (after possibly browsing thru the 16,021 overnight) the NEXT DAY, at 10am Dec 21st, David Rexrode, executive director of the RPV invented an un-dated "Safe Harbor" letter GUARANTEEING that Romney's petitions would NOT be examined.
http://www.rpv.org/sites/default/files/2012%20Petition%20Certification%20Process_1.pdf

The conspirators in that RPV office created that letter, because they were fearful that Romney might otherwise get booted by the same anal microscopic verification which they were planning in the next 36 hours for Gingrich & Perry petitions.

The letter gave the RPV free reign to use whatever drastic examination procedures were necessary to discard "enough" Gingrich and Perry petitions, while knowing the same standards would not apply to Romney. ... Romney's petitions could have been collected by ACORN with half saying "Mickey Mouse" and Romney would have still passed.

Some have suggested that David Rexrode, Pat Mullings, and Bill Bolling should go to prison for this conspiracy. Or at very least banned from politics, tarred and feathered, and run out of Virginia on a rail.

When the RPV and the State Board pulled this "Obama-style disqualification" of their (Romney's) opponents, they were committing election fraud against Virginia voters, because, of their own free will, Virginia was NOT likely to choose Romney or Paul. Those two candidates only received a combined total of 10% of the VA primary vote in 2008, and were near the bottom in this year's VA polls.

But after the trickery of this RPV office, the voters had no free will. The situation made it virtually certain that Romney would get > 50% and therefore would be the "winner take all" of Virginia's delegates.

I'm in favor of the end result - allowing all seven candidates on the ballot, but it would be better if a judge ruled it for the sake of enfranchising all VA voters, AND allowing discovery of the co-conspirators records, and investigating the suggestion that Romney volunteers were improperly on the qualification committee.