According to this story, Newt Gingrich’s Virginia presidential primary petition, like Rick Perry’s petition, did not have enough valid signatures. Virginia requires 10,000 signatures for access to a presidential primary ballot, the nation’s most difficult presidential primary petition requirement that is mandatory for all candidates.
The Virginia Republican presidential primary will be on March 6. The only names on that ballot will be Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, the only two candidates whose petition was valid. On the Democratic side, President Obama’s petition was sufficient. Since no other Democrat qualified, and since Virginia doesn’t permit write-ins in primaries, the Democratic presidential primary will not be held.
Virginia didn’t require any petition for presidential primary ballot access in 1988, the year Virginia first held a presidential primary, for candidates who were prominently discussed in the news media, or who had qualified for primary season matching funds. Then Virginia abolished its presidential primary, bringing it back, with mandatory petitions, starting in 2000.
The next presidential primary jurisdiction with a mandatory petition deadline is the District of Columbia. D.C. petitions are due January 4, 2012. Thanks to Bill Redpath for the link.
Imagine how hard 85,379 is in North Carolina!!
Is there a chart somewhere that shows the ballot access deadlines for the Republican presidential primary in various states and what Republican primary candidates have already made the ballot in those states?
I’m up on the news in Virginia, but want to see how Ron Paul is faring relative to the other candidates in other states around the U.S.
This will certainly help Paul to scoop up more delegates
Let the experience of Gingrich and Perry be an eye-opening object lesson to those dedicated supporters of Ron Paul who urge an independent or third party bid. The American electoral system is organized into fifty-two different sets of election laws (the federal laws and those of the 50 states and Guam). Each jurisdiction has entirely different ballot petition requirements for the Democrats and Republicans, as well as third party and independent presidential candidates.
These requirements are onerous, unduly burdensome, and chilling in their effect of squashing voters choosing candidates other than the Democrats and Republicans who draft and vigorously enforce these laws to protect their duopoly. I have been a litigant to several legal challenges to these restrictive laws at the state and federal level, some cases reaching the United States Supreme Court.
The vast majority of campaign funds raised in such efforts must be expended, not in advertisements or campaign promotion of ideas, but on petition campaigns and ballot litigation suits. The administrative overhead and manpower requirements of enlisting squads of reputable professional petitioners (“Road Warriors”) in all fifty states and in every major (and minor) metropolitan area is beyond the organizational imaginations of most Paul supporters who see only the good doctor and his noble ideas. No successful ballot petition campaign relies entirely on volunteers, which is counter-intuitive to virtually all efforts of the Ron Paul Revolution.
Finally, such challengers are frozen out of the televised presidential debates and interviews on the mainstream network news and talk shows and delegated to the shadows.
Ron Paul is number one in Iowa and New Hampshire. He will be the GOP nominee.
Are write-in allowed in the primary?
#5, no, Virginia doesn’t permit write-ins in primaries. Ironically, the Virginia Constitution does explicitly protect write-in votes in general elections.
I heard that Newt Gingrich paid a very high rate per signature to petition circulators in Virginia towards the end of his petition drive there. It looks like it was too little too late. This couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy (sarcasm).
Whoever was put in charge of the petition drives for Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich screwed up big time. The ballot access requirement isn’t THAT hard to the point where a campaign that has got the money that they’ve got couldn’t have made it on the ballot.
Most of the “hired guns” are working for various campaigns in other states for Americans Elect.
Gingrich was paying much better than AE is paying.
Pingback: Ballot Access News – Newt Gingrich Petition Also Falls Short in Virginia | Campaign Audit & Trust