On January 18, a subcommittee of the Virginia Senate Privileges and Elections Committee passed SB 690 by 4-2. The bill lowers the number of signatures for presidential candidates (both in presidential primaries and in the general election) from 10,000 signatures to 5,000 signatures. Now it goes to the full committee.
The full committee on the same day defeated SB 964, which would have changed the poll-closing hour from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. See this story. Thanks to Shelley Tamres for the news about SB 690. UPDATE: see this story about the bill, which says that Democratic Senator J. Chapman Petersen voted against the ballot access bill because the ballot would be too cluttered if it passes. Actually, before 1970, Virginia only required 1,000 signatures for presidential candidates in the general election, and Virginia has never had a general election ballot with more than seven presidential candidates.
Longer voting hours would be a way to increase turnout without increasing the chances for fraud. I am sorry that bill was defeated.
Jeff
Richard,
4-2. Was it a party line vote? Can we infer the full committee? It would have helped Rick Santorum stay in the race longer by keeping Romney under 50%. The only 2 were Mitt and Ron Paul.
#2, I just added a link to a news story that identifies one of the “no” votes as a Democratic Senator.
Too cluttered? And that means what, more than one candidate? Senator Petersen would seemingly have been at home in the USSR.