On September 17, a second U.S. District Court Judge in Virginia upheld the state’s law that won’t let circulators work if they don’t live in the district.  The case is Libertarian Party of Virginia v Virginia State Board of Elections, 1:10-cv-615.

The decision says the the burden on the candidate that he or she only use in-district residents is “not severe”, but the 27-page opinion complete misses the point that the restriction is severe when applied to the circulator.  There is not a word in the decision about the rights of circulators.  The decision does not even mention the U.S. Supreme Court decision Buckley v American Constitutional Law Foundation until page 23, only four pages from the end.  The U.S. Supreme Court had applied strict scrutiny when it struck down a law banning circulators who aren’t registered voters, but this decision does not mention that the U.S. Supreme Court used strict scrutiny.

The opinion tries to dispose of all the precedents that have struck down residency requirements in other states, by saying those cases only applied to petitions that require more signatures than Virginia does.  But, the decision ignores cases that struck down residency requirements for circulators from Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania that did not require a large number of signatures.  And it does not mention the 9th and 10th circuit cases, striking down residency for circulators, at all.