According to this story, some Illinois Republican leaders who support Mitt Romney now regret that they did not challenge Rick Santorum’s petitions in some districts. Illinois law says all petitions are valid if no one challenges, even if the number of signatures is obviously lower than the legal requirement.
This is additional evidence that the purpose of restrictive ballot access laws is not to block “frivolous” or “vanity” candidates, but to eliminate competitive candidates. No Romney supporter would be expressing sorrow that Santorum placed his delegates on the ballot in all districts if Santorum weren’t perceived as a threat. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.
Unbelieveable. Boy, this could come back to haunt Romney his entire life if he loses the nomination vote by a few delegates.
How long has Ballot Access been a Battle in the Gerrymander WARS ???
Since the Official ballots came along ??? Duh.
It is not technically correct that “Illinois law says all petitions are valid if no one challenges, even if the number of signatures is obviously lower than the legal requirement.” The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled that an election authority need not accept the filing of a petition which is obviously invalid upon its face. In other words, while an election authority may not check that the signers are registered voters, or that they are actually registered at the address listed, because these things require further research and can not be determined simply from looking at the face of the document, they MAY refuse the filing of a petition without the number of signatures required by statute, and have sometimes done so. It doesn’t happen all the time, considering that one candidate for Illinois Governor even got on the ballot with only one siganture–their own.
How many super computers and armies of lawyers are now needed to keep up with the nonstop ballot access machinations of the EVIL robot party hacks in the various minority rule gerrymander regimes ???
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.