Republicans to begin validating petitions Dec. 23
By JR Hoeft | Monday, December 19th, 2011 | PoliticsThe Republican Party of Virginia has announced that it will begin this week the process of validating petitions for presidential candidates seeking to be on the ballot in Virginia’s primary.
Beginning Dec. 23, volunteers will verify whether each candidate that has turned in their petitions have the proper signatures from all the congressional districts in order to appear on the March 6, 2012 primary ballot.
Candidates need to have at least 10,000 signatures statewide and 400 per congressional district.
Virginia’s convention delegates at the Republican National Convention will be allocated based on a number of conditions.
First, if a candidate wins 50 percent of the vote, they receive all the at-large delegates. If no candidate achieves 50 percent, but a candidate has received greater than 15 percent of the vote, delegates are assigned proportionally.
Additionally, each congressional district has three delegates to the convention. The candidate that wins that district, even if a plurality, will receive all three delegates.
Virginia is part of “Super Tuesday”, where 10 states are holding primaries, including Ohio. Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, Michigan and Arizona will all have concluded their nomination votes prior to Super Tuesday.
RPV hopes to have all the petitions validated on Dec. 23.
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Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. E-mail J.R.. Follow J.R. on Twitter.
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4 Responses to "Republicans to begin validating petitions Dec. 23"
I think it’s highly unlikely that Gingrich is going to get 10,000 (you need 15,000 ish) signatures spread out in the congressional districts as needed to be on the primary ballot. If I had to guess, based on his debate performance, I would say he is courting Romney to be the VP. Romney/Gingrich? It would seem that Bachmann might have been on to something the other night when she kept saying Gingrich/Romney.
With the changes to winner takes all, it’s quite possible that Virgina, for the first time in years, could be a player in picking the next president.
Romney/Gingrich? Hummmmm, I might just be able to get behind that ticket. In the mean time… go Senator Santorum!
Virginia has one of the most burdensome processes for candidates to get their names on a presidential primary ballot.
New Hampshire requires a declaration of candidacy and a $1,000 filing fee. In Michigan, the state GOP lists the names of any candidates who have been featured in the news media (although there is also a petition process similar to Virginia’s for other candidates). Georgia’s Republican Party lists candidates on its primary ballot (set for the same day as Virginia’s, March 6) simply on the basis of receiving requests to do so by the candidates — though the decision is in the hands of the party’s executive committee.
Virginia’s primary election requirements for major-party presidential candidates are the same as the requirements for independent and third-party candidates in the general election, although general-election candidates have about two months longer to collect the same number of signatures (minimum 10,000, including 400 from each of 11 congressional districts).
The General Assembly should consider proposals to ease the requirements for presidential primary candidates. Looking at other states’ rules will be a good place to start, but the changes should be in place by the time of the 2016 election cycle.
Our system works fine, and given the resources necessary to run a presidential campaign, it serves as a good way of determining who is serious and who isn’t. If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it,
The ballot count of 10000 is too high. Realistically it should be 1000 – maybe 2500 at the absolute most. Collecting signatures is hard – the only real date you have to get a critical mass is during the statewide elections in november but that disinfranchises other candidates who get a late start. Also the process of having to sort by county and even district is a little ridiculous. I don’t see how the RPV has the resources to validate that many signatures anyway.
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