Perry files suit to challenge Virginia primary ballot rules.

The Virginia GOP's rules do seem unfortunate. While candidates have been able to meet their requirements in the past, it doesn't make sense for requirements so stringent that serious candidates ever have serious trouble meeting them. Certainly, if I were a Virginia GOP primary voter, I would want the option to vote for the other candidates.

That being said, I'm not sure what legal recourse Perry has. State's have wide latitude to set election rules, and moreover this is an election for a nomination, not for a public office. Probably the ideal resolution from the GOP standpoint would be if the Virginia GOP backed down and voluntarily added the other candidates to the ballot.

Anyway, it's ironic that a Southern Governor who has tangled with the federal government regarding the Voting Rights Act is now asking a federal court to tell a Southern political party how to run its statewide election.

Here is a good article discussing irrational rules for primaries.

The most obvious point here is that Romney, Gingrich, Perry, and Paul would seem to have better campaign organizations than the other candidates. Even Gingrich, whose ability to get on the ballot in several states had been in question, managed to pull this off.

The more interesting and important point, though, is the absurdity of the process.
It’s a core teaching of American Politics 101 classes that there are no national elections in the United States. President of the United States and Vice President of the United States are national offices but we elect our presidents and vice presidents via 51 state elections (counting DC, per the 23rd Amendment), each of which (as we learned quite painfully following the 2000 election) have their own rules.

The primaries are even more bizarre. Despite the fact that we’re choosing candidates for a national office, we have an arcane process wherein the two major parties set rules and then try to enforce them on 50-plus states, districts, and territories–often without much success. The various states and other delegate-awarding entities are in competition with each other for influence on the process. Those entities must contend with the traditions that put Iowa and New Hampshire in an absurdly favorable position and where South Carolina thinks it’s next in line. And, inexplicably, each of the entities sets conditions for ballot access that seem quite whimsical and have little relation to the national race and on timetables that have no real relation to the increasingly fluid primary calendar.

That the two major political parties don’t control the primary calendar for nominating their candidates is beyond silly. Worse, however, is the fact that they don’t even control who’s on the ballot for their highest office. In a rational system, candidates would simply have to qualify one time to get on the Republican presidential ballot. Instead, candidates have to spend an absurd amount of time and money getting petitions signed and jumping through other hoops set by states and other delegate-awarding entities.
The Virginia Primary Ballot and the Absurdity of the System

Really the smart candidates--Bachmann--Huntsman & Santorum didn't even bother with the state of Virginia because of their irrational primary regulations.

Not only did a candidate have to collect 10K signatures--but 400 hundred of them had to be from each of the 11 districts in that state. Now while this may seem real easy to some folks--think about the districts in your own state that overwhelmingly consist of registered democrats?

So technically, in Virginia, you could meet your 10K signature requirement and then you could have 400 signatures coming out of 10 districts--miss the 11th because it consists of predominately registered democrats and still get booted off of the Virginia GOP primary ballot.

Rick Perry may have a point in this case--as this really disenfranchised many GOP primary voters in this state from being able to vote for their preferred candidate.
 
Last edited:
You know, I'm a funny guy. When I see a blood-spattered OJ, I conclude he killed those people, I don't wait for a court and a bunch of lawyers to screw it up.

Screw what up? Lynching OJ?

The only people who "don't" see it are Romney supporters and Democrats, which are getting harder and harder to tell apart these days.

Now that’s a funny line, whoever you are. Kudos.
 
Rick Perry may have a point in this case--as this really disenfranchised many GOP primary voters in this state from being able to vote for their preferred candidate.


Except for the fact that RIck Perry's lawsuit does not challenge the 10,000/400 requirement***, he's running to federal court about the Commonwealth's requirement that those collecting the signatures must in themselves be "qualified voters" in Virginia.




*** BTW - In his lawsuit he also notes that he submitted only 6,000 of the required 10,000 signatures by qualified voters, which makes his question about the petition gatherers moot anyway since the court is not being asked for relief on that issue.



>>>>
 
You know, I'm a funny guy. When I see a blood-spattered OJ, I conclude he killed those people, I don't wait for a court and a bunch of lawyers to screw it up.

Screw what up? Lynching OJ?

The only people who "don't" see it are Romney supporters and Democrats, which are getting harder and harder to tell apart these days.

Now that’s a funny line, whoever you are. Kudos.

Well, we didn't lynch OJ, but what was done- giving him a life sentence for a petty theft because they didn't get him on the murder charge- is about as screwy....
 
Also, from Perry's lawsuit, it reads:

"Perry submitted “over 6,000 petition signatures from qualified Virginia voters.”

Yowie Kapowie!

:rofl:

It was a requirement that they submit 10,000 qualified signatures, that means registered voters with 400 being from the 11 congressional districts. From what I understand Virginia has 3.5 million registered voters, had they parked some volunteers outside of the metro as Romney and Paul did and got at least 15,000 to 17,000 signatures they would have made it, they did not. All the candidates were advised to collect at least 15,000 because many will sign and are not registered voters. They were also warned on November 15th by the state of Virginia to get busy doing it. Santorum, Bachmann, Huntsman did not even try. Perry and Gingrich were late to the party, they missed it.

For someone who touts the 10th amendment now to file a lawsuit against the state of Virginia for enforcing their election law is a little hypocritical and if these people can not organize a national campaign they have no business running.

They had over 5 months to collect these signatures, they most certainly, especially Gingrich who polls well there as he lives in that state should have had a ground game in place to complete this, they just did not get it done. Newt missed the Missouri primary as well, because he failed to file in time for the primary.

I work with these laws everyday in my own state, election laws are laws passed by the individual states. You either comply with them or you lose out.

They may need to re-think their election laws, but it won't happen for this election, the decision has been made and I believe that the state legislature would have to re-convene in order to change their primary laws. I would imagine that they are getting pressure to do just that from their citizens.
 
Last edited:
Also, from Perry's lawsuit, it reads:

"Perry submitted “over 6,000 petition signatures from qualified Virginia voters.”

Yowie Kapowie!

:rofl:

It was a requirement that they submit 10,000 qualified signatures, that means registered voters with 400 being from the 11 congressional districts. From what I understand Virginia has 3.5 million registered voters, had they parked some volunteers outside of the metro as Romney and Paul did and got at least 15,000 to 17,000 signatures they would have made it, they did not. All the candidates were advised to collect at least 15,000 because many will sign and are not registered voters. They were also warned on November 15th by the state of Virginia to get busy doing it. Santorum, Bachmann, Huntsman did not even try. Perry and Gingrich were late to the party, they missed it.

For someone who touts the 10th amendment now to file a lawsuit against the state of Virginia for enforcing their election law is a little hypocritical and if these people can not organize a national campaign they have no business running.

They had over 5 months to collect these signatures, they most certainly, especially Gingrich who polls well there as he lives in that state should have had a ground game in place to complete this, they just did not get it done. Newt missed the Missouri primary as well, because he failed to file in time for the primary.

I work with these laws everyday in my own state, election laws are laws passed by the individual states. You either comply with them or you lose out.

And The Romney/GOP Establishment suicide pact continues...

Pass the koolaid.
 
Also, from Perry's lawsuit, it reads:

"Perry submitted “over 6,000 petition signatures from qualified Virginia voters.”

Yowie Kapowie!

:rofl:

It was a requirement that they submit 10,000 qualified signatures, that means registered voters with 400 being from the 11 congressional districts. From what I understand Virginia has 3.5 million registered voters, had they parked some volunteers outside of the metro as Romney and Paul did and got at least 15,000 to 17,000 signatures they would have made it, they did not. All the candidates were advised to collect at least 15,000 because many will sign and are not registered voters. They were also warned on November 15th by the state of Virginia to get busy doing it. Santorum, Bachmann, Huntsman did not even try. Perry and Gingrich were late to the party, they missed it.

For someone who touts the 10th amendment now to file a lawsuit against the state of Virginia for enforcing their election law is a little hypocritical and if these people can not organize a national campaign they have no business running.

They had over 5 months to collect these signatures, they most certainly, especially Gingrich who polls well there as he lives in that state should have had a ground game in place to complete this, they just did not get it done. Newt missed the Missouri primary as well, because he failed to file in time for the primary.

I work with these laws everyday in my own state, election laws are laws passed by the individual states. You either comply with them or you lose out.

And The Romney/GOP Establishment suicide pact continues...

Pass the koolaid.

Newt's and Perry's national campaign teams. :eusa_clap:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NPzLBSBzPI&feature=related]Lucy's Famous Chocolate Scene - YouTube[/ame]
 
Also, from Perry's lawsuit, it reads:

"Perry submitted “over 6,000 petition signatures from qualified Virginia voters.”

Yowie Kapowie!

:rofl:

It was a requirement that they submit 10,000 qualified signatures, that means registered voters with 400 being from the 11 congressional districts. From what I understand Virginia has 3.5 million registered voters, had they parked some volunteers outside of the metro as Romney and Paul did and got at least 15,000 to 17,000 signatures they would have made it, they did not. All the candidates were advised to collect at least 15,000 because many will sign and are not registered voters. They were also warned on November 15th by the state of Virginia to get busy doing it. Santorum, Bachmann, Huntsman did not even try. Perry and Gingrich were late to the party, they missed it.

For someone who touts the 10th amendment now to file a lawsuit against the state of Virginia for enforcing their election law is a little hypocritical and if these people can not organize a national campaign they have no business running.

They had over 5 months to collect these signatures, they most certainly, especially Gingrich who polls well there as he lives in that state should have had a ground game in place to complete this, they just did not get it done. Newt missed the Missouri primary as well, because he failed to file in time for the primary.

I work with these laws everyday in my own state, election laws are laws passed by the individual states. You either comply with them or you lose out.

And The Romney/GOP Establishment suicide pact continues...

Pass the koolaid.

It's staggering how little people understand the election and petitioning process.

Everything in the above post is completely correct. Plugging your ears and screaming "LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU KOOLAID KOOLAID LALALALA" doesn't make it any less true.

I'm neither a Democrat nor a Republican, and I have no dog in this fight, but I've carried, examined and challenged thousands of election petitions, and everything in the above post is not only TRUE, but STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE in nearly every election around the world. Anyone who knows what they are doing gets at least 150% of the total needed, if not 2x as many.

Everyone who's not on the ballot fucked themselves. It's no one else's fault.
 
It's staggering how little people understand the election and petitioning process.

Everything in the above post is completely correct. Plugging your ears and screaming "LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU KOOLAID KOOLAID LALALALA" doesn't make it any less true.

I'm neither a Democrat nor a Republican, and I have no dog in this fight, but I've carried, examined and challenged thousands of election petitions, and everything in the above post is not only TRUE, but STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE in nearly every election around the world. Anyone who knows what they are doing gets at least 150% of the total needed, if not 2x as many.

Everyone who's not on the ballot fucked themselves. It's no one else's fault.

I think the questions are- why were they looking to disqualify people, and did they apply the same standard to everyone...

And when you hear that the LT. Gov. of the State is also Romney's campaign chairman, it certainly looks like the fix is in.

But the bigger problem for the GOP is this. The polls show again and again, there is no great love for Romney amongst the rank and file. Under normal circumstances Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich would be jokes. But Republicans are desperate for an alternative because they don't like or trust Romney for pretty good reasons.

The party should be looking for alternatives, instead they are doubling down on a bad idea.

Suicide Pact.
 
Not only did a candidate have to collect 10K signatures--but 400 hundred of them had to be from each of the 11 districts in that state. Now while this may seem real easy to some folks--think about the districts in your own state that overwhelmingly consist of registered democrats?

Huckabee
McCain
Guliani
Romney
Paul
Thompson

What do all six of these men have in common?

George W. Bush
John McCain
Alan Keyes
Gary Bauer
Steve Forbes

What do all five of these men have in common?

Also, perhaps you missed it, but I explained elsewhere how I could have gotten the job done all by myself in about two months. These guys had entire campaigns working for them. What's your excuse now?
 

Forum List

Back
Top