Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich dropped his legal effort to get on Virginia’s primary ballot after failing to qualify for the state’s March 6 election.
Gingrich’s legal team informed the U.S. District Court in Richmond on Saturday that the former House Speaker was voluntarily dismissing the case. Virginia had already sent out absentee ballots to disabled and military voters and it was unlikely the judge would have interfered with that process.
Gingrich, a Virginia resident, failed to submit the 10,000 valid signatures necessary to qualify for Virginia’s presidential primary ballot. His campaign sought legal relief, joining a lawsuit launched by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who also fell short of the threshold.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman also signed on as defendents. Huntsman and Santorum asked to dismiss their cases on Jan. 27.
A federal judge ruled the candidates waited too long to complain and missed their chance to sue the state. Perry did not file the lawsuit until after the state Republican Party ruled that only former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas qualified for the ballot.
Had they sued earlier, they likely would have won, the judge said, because the state’s rule banning out-of-state residents from collecting signatures is unconstitutional. An appeals court later upheld the ruling.
It does not appear that Santorum, who did not turn in any signatures, has dropped the case yet.
Gingrich later said he would seek a write-in campaign, but that’s not allowed in Virginia primaries. A bill quickly moving through the legislature to change that policy would not go into affect by the election.
