The Virginia legislature still hasn’t drawn new U.S. House district boundaries, even though state law says that this job must be done by January 1 of any election year following a new census. Virginia law regarding petitions for the presidential candidates of unqualified parties, and independent presidential candidates, says that these petitions must carry the names of presidential elector candidates. Furthermore, candidates for presidential elector have a residency requirement; the petition must list one elector candidate from each district, plus the two at-large electors.
Because no Virginia resident can know which district he or she will be living in, until after the new districts are drawn, it is impossible for a group, or an independent presidential candidate, to state to circulate the petition. The law says these petitions may start to circulate on January 1 of the presidential election year, but in practice, in 2012 so far, they cannot circulate yet. Virginia does permit stand-in presidential candidates, so if it weren’t for the presidential elector residency problem, any unqualified parties could be circulating petitions for president now. The only qualified parties in Virginia since 1997 have been the Democratic and Republican Parties.
The Virginia election code seems to discriminate against unqualified parties and independent presidential candidates, relative to qualified parties. The law seems to have no requirement that the presidential elector candidates nominated by the qualified parties need live in any particular district. Thanks to Bill Redpath for this news.
The redistricting delay also subtracts from the available petitioning period for candidates for U.S. House. Although a candidate for U.S. House need not live in the district, the circulators must live in the district. The district residency requirement is being litigated.
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West Virginia’s is messed-up too – headed to the Supreme Court: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/04/us-redistricting-westvirginia-update-idUSTRE80306U20120104
The EVIL gerrymander ANTI-Democracy CRISIS in the U.S.A. has been building since 4 July 1776 — it is N-O-W.
P.R. NOW >>>>> DEMOCRACY — both majority rule and minority representation.
Total Votes / Total Seats = EQUAL votes required for each seat winner.
Excess winner votes DOWN – loser votes UP — pending head to head math.
In Connecticut the congressional redistricting in in court and they now have a Feb 15 deadline. I may try to apply for nominating petitions tomorrow just to see what happens. We are supposed to be able start on the first day of Jan.
Also, I talked to the Republican registrar in my town even though the state assembly and senate districts have been approved the exact boundaries are not known. I do not know what effect this will have on petitioning.
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