On December 23, West Virginia released its write-in totals from last month’s election. None of the qualified write-in candidates for president in West Virginia were on the ballot in any state. Bob Barr was not on the ballot in West Virginia, but he didn’t have write-in status in that state because he filed his write-in declaration one day too late.
Although the Constitution Party was on the ballot for president, it was not on for Governor. However, its candidate for Governor, Butch Paugh, polled 234 write-ins. Thanks to Brandon Henderson for this news.
It is really sad that Reverand Paugh got only 234 votes. I believe that he wanted to get at least 8,000.
Donald Allen is being confused with Jonathan Allen.
Also, 59 write-ins for Santa Claus of Incline Village, Nevada.
Might want to keep an eye on this. The Constitution Party of WV is recieving copies of NOTARIZED reports from people in counties all over the state of specific and detailed complaints to the WVSOS surrounding write-in candidates on Nov 4.
Some examples so far:
– when asked about write-in choices, poll worker told voter that she should have already had her mind made up,
– another poll worker told voter they he would have to go to the county court house to cast his write-in,
– another poll worker told a voter that a certain candidate was running unopposed and that there were no other choices,
– voter asked poll worker for the official write-in selection list while at voting machine and was told, NO, she could not leave the machine to look at it,
– official lists posted behind open doors, so not in places where voters would see them while passing or waiting to vote,
– one precinct had a half dozen printed copes loose on a table for voters to take – not taped to wall – and they then ran out of them,
… You can all probably see where this is going.
Thank you, Mr. Anon. I fixed it.
Sounds like what happened in CT with write-ins.
Richard,
Why was the Constitution Party on the ballot for President but not for Governor?
Tom,
As Chairman of the CPWV, I will answer your question: earlier petition signature deadline. In WV, the gubernatorial petition signatures are arbitrarily due by the day before the primary (in this case, Monday May 12, 2008) but minor/independent parties have until August 1 to finish turning in presidential candidate signatures.
The CPWV was heavily interfered with during the entire petitioning process. In September 2007, we were prohibited from petitioning in State Parks (lawsuit in process). In November, an arrest on a public sidewalk outside of a Sunday holiday craft fair, … we have a list a mile long and have submitted two election complaints with the WVSOS, but they do not care about problems that petitioners have.
We submitted over 11,000 signatures for Butch Paugh by the May 12 date, and another 10,000+ on August 1. All of our petitions had both Butch Paugh’s and Chuck Baldwin’s names on them, so, even though both offices sought were statewide races and we had nothing to with the primary, and were submitted well in advance to prepare ballots (see Libertarian Party’s Bobb Barr’s lawsuit rebuttle), the SOS still disallowed placing Mr. Paugh’s name on the ballot, even though he paid the $1600 filing fee!
Jeff,
We have a similar situation in VA. Petitions are due for all offices except President shortly after the June primary. The Presidential deadline is in late August, which was fortunate for the Green Party of Virginia, as we would have never made the June deadline.
The VA petition requirement is somewhat lower than that of WV (10,000 for a statewide candidate), but we need to get 400 signatures in each Congressional District. Additionally, we need to get 10% in a statewide race to keep ballot status.
The prohibitions against the CP petitioning on state parks and sidewalks are pretty outrageous. If we had been kept from petitioning on public sidewalks in front of an art festival and the DMV, I strongly doubt that GPVA would have gotten our 400 signatures in the 6th Congressional District. Good luck with your lawsuits.
Is the CP getting organized in VA?