Only one presidential candidate submitted a petition in West Virginia this year, Kanye West. The petition was ruled insufficient. West submitted approximately 15,000 signatures but the state says only 6,383 were valid. There were 1,135 signatures that were not counted because election officials could not read the handwriting. The requirement for president this year is 7,144.
The qualified parties in West Virginia are Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, and Green.
RE: “could not read the handwriting” – means they could not read the PRINTED name, not necessarily their written signature. This tells you all you need to know about the quality of Kanye’s petitioning staff. Skilled petitioners make sure THEY can read the signer’s printed name UPSIDE DOWN before approaching the next person. In West Virginia, petitioners are allowed to make corrections to the printed name (dot “i”s, cross “t”s, clarify “a”s, “o”s, “e”s, etc.), but obviously not the signature.
Of course, pictures of some of the other state applications showed many entire pages of the signatures to be in the same handwriting. That’ll get your application tossed tout suite.
It’s interesting that Don Blankenship wasn’t able to get on the ballot in his home state.