The West Virginia Secretary of State has determined that the Constitution Party’s gubernatorial petition has enough valid signatures. S. Marshall Wilson, a former Republican state legislator, is the Constitution Party’s nominee for Governor. He is well-known and considered likely to poll more than 1% of the vote. If he does, the Constitution Party will be a ballot-qualified party in West Virginia for the first time ever.
The party circulated its gubernatorial petition before it knew who it was running for president, so the petition named no one for president, and the party’s presidential nominee, Randall Terry, won’t be on the ballot this year. Back in 1995, the West Virginia Secretary of State ruled that praties can use stand-in presidential candidates on their statewide petitions, but the Constitution Party didn’t take advantage of that idea this year. Thanks to Jeff Becker for the news about the Wilson petition acceptance.
Actually, the party DID USE stand-in presidential candidates when it began petitioning last September. But at some point, Mr. Wilson removed them from his petitions and only circulated forms with just his own name on them. Thus, there were only about 4,000 signatures, half the requirement, which counted for both Mr. Wilson and Mr. Terry. Mr. Wilson was a delegate to the CP presidential nominating convention in Salt Lake City this year and cast his vote for Joel Skousen. In 2020, Wilson got 15,120 votes (1.9%) as a write-in for governor: https://sos.wv.gov/elections/Documents/HistElecDocs/2020/2020%20General%20Write-in%20Results.pdf
Wilson was so salty that Skousen lost the nomination in spite of all the cheating to ensure he wouldn’t, that he decided to screw over his party by ensuring the CPWV’s board didn’t even have the option of putting Terry to the ballot.
Wilson and Harlos should be given what the French called a “republican marriage”.