Let the whining over Virginia’s ballot access rules begin!
By Norman Leahy | Friday, December 23rd, 2011 | Politics, VirginiaThere’s a bit of national fallout from the news that only four of the seven GOP presidential campaigns managed to file the required number of petition signatures to appear on the March 6th primary ballot.
As is to be expected, some of the campaigns are whining that Virginia’s ballot access rules are just too darned hard:
On a conference call with grassroots supporters last week, a top Santorum staffer had discussed ballot-access issues in several states. Virginia was singled out as a tough one, because of the “stringent” factor described in the Politico article: Not just the 10,000-signature minimum, but you have to get 400 signatures in each of 11 congressional districts, and the deadline hit in the middle of the holiday season, at the same time that the campaigns were going all-out in Iowa.
The Santorum people on the conference call were asking for Virginia volunteers to help with their ballot-access drive, saying they were hoping for a “Christmas miracle.” Given the low-budget situation with the Santorum campaign, they had no other choice but rely on volunteers. (Romney, of course, could afford to hire professional ballot-access people.)
RPV sources I spoke with yesterday regarding where the various campaigns stood with petition gathering indicated that some — like Bachamnn and Santorum — hadn’t been heard from or seen in months. The State Board of Elections issued a bulletin on March 6th informing all would-be presidential candidates that they could begin gathering signatures on July 1st.
The SBE’s notice even came with a suggestion on how many signatures to gather:
Because many people who are not registered to vote will sign a petition, it is recommended that 15,000 – 20,000 signatures be obtained with at least 700 signatures from each congressional district.
That some campaigns chose either to wait till the last minute to begin the process, failed to get started at all, or neglected the SBE’s advice on signatures reflects poorly on the campaigns, not on the state’s ballot access requirements.
So enough with the whining. If a campaign can’t put the boots on the ground to clear the petition goal — or even read the damned forms issued months in advance by the State Board of Elections — then we have to seriously question the campaign’s viability.
If anything, Virginia’s petition process has done a national service, exposing the weak and trivial campaigns and advancing the rest.
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About the author
Norm Leahy has written about Virginia and national politics online since 2002, beginning with One Man's Trash (OMT), and continuing through Bacon's Rebellion (both the blog and the e-zine), Sic Semper Tyrannis, NBC12's Decision Virginia, Richmond.com and Tertium Quids. He is the chief blogger at "The Score" and a producer of "The Score" radio show as well as being a Washington Examiner contributor.
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23 Responses to "Let the whining over Virginia’s ballot access rules begin!"
Yeah, not like there wasn’t an election day this past November where folks could have stood outside the polls and gotten signatures all day long…
or packed unit committee meetings that would have been prime locations all summer and fall.
Well put, Norman! There has been ample time for any campaign to do the work…you just need to have done the work. I have said it many times before and I will say it again – - – A campaign needs three things to be effective: 1) An exceptional candidate with a strong message, 2) A superior fundraising section and 3) ORGANIZATION, ORGANIZATION AND ORGANIZATION!! If you cannot properly establish AND maintain all three then your campaign will suffer…
Jim – sounds like you should be a consultant.
Your principles also work for any business venture too: 1) an exceptional product with strong marketing 2) Exceptional sales 3) Organization.
This is not rocket science. And Virginia’s requirements:
1) Were incredibly transparent
2) Have to be met by every statewide candidate that runs here
3) Were made known well in advance by the SBE
Again, if a campaign can’t follow basic business rules and election procedures, how can they be trusted to lead the free world?
I’m sorry, but Santorum, Huntsman, and Bachmann completely dq’d themselves as serious contenders. And if Perry and Gingrich don’t reach the threshold, they should be no longer considered either.
Contrary to some, I am not bothered by a Paul/Romney head-to-head. I think that would be very good for the GOP…and, ultimately, for the country.
I don’t necessarily think Paul wins, but if he doesn’t, he won’t go 3rd party. If he does win, then, well, he’s the man.
If you can’t find a group of people dedicated enough (or have money to pay for signature collection) chances are that you won’t any chance of winning anyway. Sure, Virginia is one of the toughest states to get on the ballot, but the fact that Santorum, Bachmann, and Huntsman won’t be on the ballot speaks volumes of their grassroots and fundraising ability.
even beyond the conversation of whose candidacy is better organized, it is Virginia’s RIGHT to require whatever signatures it pleases.
so if Santorum & Bachmann don’t like Virginia’s rules, then they really don’t understand the broad concept of the 10th amendment.
over at NLS, Ben’s comments on Twitter say it is Mullins/RPV who should have seen to it that everyone got on the ballot. Perhaps from “let’s get more-the-merrier & have a big tent” perspective, this is true.
Kelley – Leave it to a Democrat to believe that it’s the responsibility of someone else to ensure an individual’s success…
I don’t care much one way or the other about the ballot requirements, but I must disagree with Mr. Hoeft about what happens if Perry and Gingrich do not qualify. A ballot restricted to Romney and Paul will not be good for the GOP. Ace of Spades, Allahpundit, and TNR are doing great work at bringing to light the awful things Ron Paul published in his newsletter for years. A primary election restricted to Romney and Paul will give state media plenty of chances to discuss how ballot rules limited candidate access, how uninspired conservative voters are by Romney and how they lack choices on the Virginia ballot, and the crazy fringe theories peddled by Paul for all those years. That’s a high price to pay for a limited benefit to Romney, unless marginalizing Paul’s supporters here is worth it.
Great point, Todd.
“Crazy fringe ideas”, like abiding with what is written or absent from the U.S. Constitution? Do me a favor. Cite a fringe idea Paul espouses, then nullify the instance with the U.S. Constitution reference. I guess there are those that believe the U.S. Constitution is a fringe idea.
I have to disagree with both Todd and Shaun on this issue. Oh no! Our choices are a candidate with some decades old racist baggage or a Mormon! Guess it is four more years of Obama. Personally, I believe political principles should outweigh these two matters, but what do I know?
Whether they’re your candidate or not, they had to follow a set of guidelines for getting on the ballot. It’s pretty simple. If the candidate and his/her organization paid enough attention to those guidelines and the voters here, like Romney and Paul did, they would be on the ballot.
Blaming RPV is like blaming the referee for one call in a football game you lost by 5 touchdowns.
Scott: I think the point being made by RPV is they could have helped everybody get on. I think I remember that in 2008 the DPV was collecting signatures for all the presidential candidates at some event.
Of course there’s no requirment to do that.
And Santorum and Huntsman obviously haven’t been serious candidates for a multitude of reasons that have nothing to do with Virginia’s ballot access rules.
I don’t blame RPV though I would have liked to have seen petitions at or near the registration table at the advance for all candidates. It is a formidable job to gather the signatures in Virginia. It is why some paid rather handsomely to get the signatures. Do we want them to spend their money that way or against the Democrat ?
There needs to be a hard look taken at both our irrelevance in most cases in the Presidential primary process and why we don’t seek a change in that. We need to ask our national committee people about that when they run again.
We also need to look at the numbers required in the petition process and why we are certifying so are ahead of time in a holiday season. It allows little time for a late comer on the scene. Candidates do not have large staffs in the beginnings and don’t we want to have as any as possible on our ballot so the voters have a real choice ? Do we really want just two, no matter who they are ?
Steve,
My point is that if a campaign needs to rely on RPV to do that work for them, it is a poor sign of organization and of things to come. The fact that only Romney and Paul got it done, says they’re taking VA seriously.
These standards are a litmus test to the legitimacy of a campaign’s infrastructure in an important swing state. And seriously, any one of the campaigns could have paid 15k(supposing an avg of $1 per signature) or more get it done.
[...] say that the 10,000 signature (plus 400 from each of 11 congressional districts) threshold is appropriate and offers a sturdy test of the candidate’s capability to put together an effective campaign [...]
sorry that RPV’s rules separate the men from the boys
and girl
@Wally Erb: Please take a look at the newsletters discussed in this article: http://tinyurl.com/d29gcc8
and tell me what’s constitutional about the stuff included in them.
I think you can look at who has apparently made it- Romney, Paul, and Gingrich barely, and say that Virginia’s entrance requirements demonstrate a candidate’s national profile just as much as their organizational abilities. Romney ran once and has never stopped running, Paul is probably the country’s best-known libertarian and ran nationally before as well, and Gingrich has spent two decades as an elected official and then spokesman for various conservative causes. None of those who didn’t make it can match that. That might be all to the well and good, but does it benefit the party and the state? If we want the candidates we can choose from to be famous as well as politically popular, we better be aware of what we’re getting into, and what we might lose as a result.
Romney had Bill Bolling’s operation behind him, Paul had his log existing operation and Gingrich was paying for signatures in the past few weeks. Is that really where we want to be ? I think we want more rather the fewer choices for Virginians especially when not the first primary or caucus have been held anywhere.
I’m a Paul supporter.
While I am delighted that Dr. Paul has met this requirement, I remain dismayed by the control exerted over the political process by the one-party ‘two party’ system. By the time the voters actually get to “vote,” the candidate selection process has usually narrowed their choices to either ‘bigger government’ or ‘bigger government.’ If Dr. Paul is not the R nominee in November, it should be obvious to everyone that that will be the choice yet again.
If anyone cares, this past week the U.S. federal debt-to-GDP ratio crossed the 100% threshold. Many pundits cite crossing 90% as the “event horizon” leading to a near-certain eventual default event.
So yes, let’s all vote for bigger government.
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