Only six Democrats filed to be on the Virginia Democratic presidential primary, even though the state party assisted 8 Democrats with the mandatory 10,000 signature petition. The six who filed are Biden, Clinton, Edwards, Kucinich, Obama, and Richardson. The state party circulated a joint petition for those Democrats as well as for Dodd and Gravel. One signature counted for all 8 Democrats. The party petition gathered 7,000 signatures. Despite that help, Dodd and Gravel did not file.
Only six Republicans filed in Virginia. Unlike the Democrats, each Republican was on his own, with no help from the state Republican Party. They are Giuliani, Huckabee, McCain, Paul, Romney and Thompson.
According to the Associated Press, this is the number of signatures filed by each Republican: Giuliani 17,041; Huckabee 19,329; McCain 15,024; Paul 21,142; Romney 15,443; Thompson 15,549. The number filed by each Democrat is: Biden 12,074; Clinton 15,075; Edwards 10,081; Kucinich 10,000; Obama 18,900; Richardson 10,000. It turns out that the paperwork asks each candidate to specify how many signatures he or she is turning in. There was confusion on the part of some of the Democratic candidates as to how to fill in this blank. The candidates were all aware that the Democratic Party was turning in a joint petition for all 8 of them, with 7,300 signatures for each. So, some of the Democrats collected as few as 4,000 signatures by themselves, but they still wrote in “10,000” on the form, knowing they really each had more than that when the party-collected signatures were added in.
