Posted on 12/24/2011 7:37:11 AM PST by TBBT
Today, Thursday, December 22, 2011, is the ballot access deadline for the 2012 Virginia Republican presidential primary. It also marks the most significant organizational challenge for the presidential campaigns since the Ames Straw Poll on August 13—a labor-intensive task so expensive and time-consuming that at least one and possibly more campaigns will not even attempt it this year. And, the very real possibility exists that one or more candidates who made a run at it will come up short and be kept off the Virginia primary ballot as a result.
Virginia’s statutory ballot access requirement is, quite simply, one of if not the most daunting in the country: A minimum of 10,000 petition signatures collected statewide, including at least 400 from each of its 11 congressional districts. That’s hard enough. But then there are the additional restrictions: The petition circulators must be registered or eligible to vote in Virginia. The signatures must be gathered using the State Board of Elections’ official form, a two-page document which must be reproduced as double-sided. (Single-sided stapled forms are not accepted.) Signatures must be collected on forms that are specific to each city, county and congressional district. Only “qualified” voters may sign a petition. And every single petition form must be sworn and notarized.
Want a sense of how next-to-impossible this is? I know top-flight Virginia political consultants who turned down lucrative petition project contracts from presidential campaigns because they did not think it could be done.
(Excerpt) Read more at ashby-law.com ...
Virginia’s statutory ballot access requirement is, quite simply, one of if not the most daunting in the country: A minimum of 10,000 petition signatures collected statewide, including at least 400 from each of its 11 congressional districts. That’s hard enough. But then there are the additional restrictions: The petition circulators must be registered or eligible to vote in Virginia. The signatures must be gathered using the State Board of Elections’ official form, a two-page document which must be reproduced as double-sided. (Single-sided stapled forms are not accepted.) Signatures must be collected on forms that are specific to each city, county and congressional district. Only “qualified” voters may sign a petition. And every single petition form must be sworn and notarized.
*snip*
For all candidates who have met the statutory requirement, I think the Party’s plan to scrutinize some candidates’ signatures and not others, based upon the arbitrary standard of whether the candidates submitted a full 50% more than the statutory requirement, violates the Equal Protection Clause under Bush v. Gore. It seems to me that all candidates who facially meet the statutory requirement should have their petitions and signatures adjudged according to the same standard.
Somebody should be playing this gotcha on Romney too. Challenge each of his signatures.
And challenge the challenges to all the other campaigns’ petitions.
screw em.. bypass the state and move on is my advice
They are a political organization and can change their own rules at any time. If they allow this to stand we can assume Gov Bob McDonell is fine with leaving 5 out of 7 candidates off tht eballt.
They are a political organization and can change their own rules at any time. If they allow this to stand we can assume Gov Bob McDonell is fine with leaving 5 out of 7 candidates off the ballot.
The Fix is in! The GOP has chosen Romney. I wish they had fought against Obama in 2008 as hard as they are for Romney today.
Excellent. Newt or Perry should sue.
I think its all kinda funny. The hypocrisy of those who got a chuckle about others being excluded yesterday are screaming for justice today.
We could fix the situation by having all primaries closed and on the same day with all GOP candidates included.
everybody in Va who isn’t for Romney should vote Ron Paul(who has no chance at the nomination)to make the state irrelevant and move on.. there is more than one way to skin a cat
Yep, but Virginia is tied at the hip to DC and the true "establishment" political machine. It wants to be able to help those it deems establishment lackeys and to obstruct those it fears will upset the applecart.
Ashby law says that looking at some signatures and not at others probably violates equal protection under bush v gore.
I think all of the items in the 10000/400/registered/signature law of VA violates equal protection, esp. cf other states.
Looks like we can call Virginia he land of OZ.
This needs to be challenged in the federal courts. There is a precedent in place already like you said Bush vs Gore.
Romney and Paul are only qualified because NOBODY has verified even one signature on their petitions.
This system encourages signature fraud. Any one of the candidates could have just fraudulently submitted 15,000 signatures and gotten on the ballot. But if you are honest and only submit signatures that you believe are legitimate then your signatures are subject to review by volunteers who are probably not even sworn to any kind of oath to be honest and fair in their analysis.
The whole system is arbitrary. All of the other candidates should not only appeal to the courts, but also appeal to the RNC to have any delegates from Virgina decertified at the convention.
It’s idiotic. No signatures should be required. Newt and Perry both poll above 5% in VA. Put them on the damn ballot and call it a day.
It seems to me the easiest solution is for the national GOP to decertify the Virginia delegation. I suspect the state party would then find a way to get the candidates on the ballot.
But then, this is exactly the sort of crap the national GOP wants to have happen.
The whole point is to allow the Party insiders - for both parties - to restrict the slate of candidates to those who they want to win.
Frankly, VA should simply be bypassed, and their delegates decertified at the national convention. Won’t happen, I know, since the national GOP establishment wants Romney, but that’s what *should* happen.
I think you're right. So much for blaming Bachmann, Santorum, and the others for failing to get this done correctly.
Virginia voters should forget about the GOP establishment's candidate and write in their choice.
I have lived in Northern Virginia since 1963 and although didn’t get ‘involved’ until Bush I (they were calling him a wimp and I started taking an active interest in Politics).
I don’t know how Virginia goes about their little “R” meetings etc, but it gets pretty ‘bad’ when involved and you pick up a paper and see where the local Va “R” have voted in a new chair.
Maybe they get their ‘lists’ from Donors to the Party (which I refuse to do as long as the ‘party’ continues to back the ‘known traitors’ (RINO’s).
Of course, if you don’t announce your intentions publicly etc, you can pretty much control the crowd, hence the outcome of the ‘special’ appointment election.
I will admit to having seen tables outside of Post Offices etc but normally that is in support of LaRouche (another subject, another time)
Then again, are you limited to only signing a petition for ONE candidate?
I would have signed a Newt petition but definitely NOT a Romney one.
That said, if worse comes to worse I would vote for Romney or whoever ‘they’ throw at us, if for nothing else to make sure I can get to cast my ballot for Senate and House - which we definitely have to win BIG so at least we can stem the flow of money if BO gets reelected. If you stay home, you do not cast your vote for ANYONE, which could end up ‘disastrous’.
I certainly hope that all the R’s quit using the phrase “Put us back in so we can control the money” - I certainly remember the spending spree that came about with R/R/R and an R leaning SC with Bush II and also the ‘give aways’ that Nixon presided over.
So R’s in charge don’t guarantee anything really changing although the ‘Freshman Class’ should get some more help this time aroung - that is if the present ones aren’t already corrupted.
Like Newt or not, he certainly brought about change when he was Speaker - to bad they ‘got to him’ and ousted him, but that was as much the IL machine as anything (Hastert and LaHood ‘assumed the throne)
You can bet your bippy that the D operatives haven’t forgotten.
It does seem that everyone time BO or his minions step on their tallywacker, the R’s manage to have 2 people say someting equally as stupid, which just knocks the D stupidity off the front page.
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