Although he failed to place his name on the Virginia presidential primary ballot in the election scheduled for March 6, Newt Gingrich’s campaign is under investigation by the Office of the Attorney General for possible fraud in the gathering of petition signatures.
Gingrich himself admitted that one of the signature gatherers hired by the campaign submitted fraudulent signatures. As noted by Brad Friedman, an election-law blogger:
In late December, after Gingrich had failed to turn in enough valid signatures to qualify for the Virginia primary ballot, he was caught on video tape telling a supporter in Iowa that the reason for the failure was due to a campaign worker who created 1,500 fraudulent signatures.
“We turned in 11,100 — we needed 10,000 — 1,500 of them were by one guy who, frankly, committed fraud,” Gingrich is seen and heard saying in video originally aired by CNN.
A spokesman for Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has confirmed to Bearing Drift, however, that “Gingrich himself is not a target. It would be the campaign.”
This makes sense because, if someone contracted by the campaign to collect signatures did so fraudulently, Gingrich would himself be the victim of fraud.
It is not clear from Gingrich’s earlier admission whether the fraudulent signatures were, in fact, submitted in the package to the State Board of Elections for verification by the Republican Party of Virginia. This is probably one of the questions that the Attorney General’s office is seeking to clarify.
Julian Walker has more details here.
