December 22 was the deadline for Republican presidential candidates to submit petitions to be on the Virginia presidential primary ballot. Four candidates submitted petitions. However, two of them submitted fewer than 12,000 signatures. Mitt Romney submitted 16,026; Ron Paul submitted 14,361; Rick Perry submitted 11,911; and Newt Gingrich submitted 11,050. The requirement is 10,000, with at least 400 from each U.S. House district in the state.
No one else submitted a petition. Candidates who are on all other Republican presidential primary ballots so far, but who did not submit a petition, include Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman, and Rick Santorum.
The Republican Party of Virginia says it will check the petitions for validity. However, the party had already previously said that any candidate who submitted at least 15,000 would be deemed to have submitted a valid petition. It would be surprising if the Perry and Gingrich have enough valid signatures. It is generally unheard of for any petition (other than one with a very tiny requirement) to have a validity rate as high as 83%. See this story, which is the source of the information for the exact number of signatures submitted.
The republicans will break their rules for someone that is bought and paid for.
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Newt reported earlier that he was submitting 14,000 signatures. Does this mean that the company he hired is incapable of counting?
I assume that Barrack Obama has enough signatures to appear on the Virginia primary ballot.
???
Yes, way more than enough. We were collecting signatures since August to give us more than 15,000 valid signatures so yes, the President will be appearing on the ballot.
So if I’m reading this correctly, the best way to go is to forge the heck out of petitions to get to 15,000, and you will get in without any validation. But if you have 14,999 they are going to comb through the signatures to make sure they are all legit? Nothing like an incentive to cheat.
I’m sure they’ll make sure Gingrich and Oops are on the ballot.
The most important thing about an election is that the rules must not change after the election process has begun. I hope to see Ron Paul go one on one with Mitt. Otherwise Virginia must be suied.
With the OHIO Secretary of State and House and Senate just deciding to move the Primary up from May or June to March, it is outrageous that the date to submit petitions keeps changing. Candidates were told they have a 2-week window to submit petitions. Candidates should be allowed to submit petitions anytime from Jan. 1, 2011 to Jan 31, 2012. If the states can’t even make up their minds when the Primaries are and they can change them and push them up 2 or 3 months at the last minute, then they MUST allow petitions to be submitted up to 30 days before the election. Ballots can be printed within the last 30 days, and computer programs can add one more candidate within the last 30 days right before Early Voting begins.
IF YOU CAN REGISTER TO VOTE WITHIN 30 DAYS OF AN ELECTION, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES CAN REGISTER PETITIONS TO GET ON THE BALLOT WITHIN 30 DAYS OF AN ELECTION…
Reports that Newt submitted only a little over 400 signatures for CD-3. If they start counting there, they will only need to find 30 invalid signatures to disqualify the entire effort.
While it would be nice, as Deborah Mulholand says, that if people can register to vote as late as 30 days before an election that presidential candidates can petition to be on the ballot in that same timeframe, the problem is that, under Virginia law, absentee voting must begin 45 days before the election. The ballot must be in place before that time.
I’d have to look it up, but I believe that UOCAVA (the federal law regarding overseas voters) requires that ballots be available to send to uniformed servicemembers and other Americans abroad even earlier than the 45-day period mandated by Virginia law.
Deb sorry but their lack of planning shouldn’t be the states emergency. Seems RP am MR did the work while others were sitting on cruise ships and not doing what they should have been doing getting the signatures.
I hope Gingrich doesn’t get his. He is a lazzy azz soaking up the sun on cruise ships and nice hotels on donated money while others were using their donors money responsibly. He is to interested in doing book signings. He is a fat joke! The rest I wish well.
Amen Tony
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I would allow all four and say they had enough backing. Go Ron Paul though!
Let the experience of Gingrich, Bachmann, Huntsman, Santorum and Perry be an eye-opening object lesson to those dedicated supporters of Ron Paul who urge an independent or third party bid. The American electoral system is organized into fifty-two different sets of election laws (the federal laws and those of the 50 states and Guam). Each jurisdiction has entirely different ballot petition requirements for the Democrats and Republicans, as well as third party and independent presidential candidates.
These requirements are onerous, unduly burdensome, and chilling in their effect of squashing voters choosing candidates other than the Democrats and Republicans who draft and vigorously enforce these laws to protect their duopoly. I have been a litigant to several legal challenges to these restrictive laws in Oklahoma at the state and federal level, some cases reaching the United States Supreme Court.
The vast majority of campaign funds raised in such efforts must be expended, not in advertisements or campaign promotion of ideas, but on petition campaigns and ballot litigation suits. The administrative overhead and manpower requirements of enlisting squads of reputable professional petitioners (“Road Warriors”) in all fifty states and in every major (and minor) metropolitan area is beyond the organizational imaginations of most Paul supporters who see only the good doctor and his noble ideas. No successful ballot petition campaign relies entirely on volunteers, which is counter-intuitive to virtually all efforts of the Ron Paul Revolution.
Finally, such challengers are frozen out of the televised presidential debates and interviews on the mainstream network news and talk shows and relegated to the shadows.
Ron Paul is number one in Iowa and New Hampshire. He will be the GOP nominee.
@Charles Burris,
I agree in part, though the official Ron Paul campaigns surely found that they didn’t need to spend nearly as much as other campaigns on professional petitioners.
Dear Sanda, Thank you for such a nice gift. I look forward of voting for Dr. Ron Paul in this election. One candidates that cares about the people and not his banker bosses. I also thank you for having open the eyes of american people. Marry Christmassss!!!