In allowing just two of the seven Republican presidential candidates on its primary ballot, Virginia has scrambled the GOP race for the White House before voting even begins in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Only former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul are expected to be on the ballot when Virginians vote March 6. Two others – former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry — were dropped after failing to submit 10,000 valid voter signatures election officials. Three other contenders — Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman — didn’t even bother trying to get on the Virginia ballot.
Having only two candidates qualify for the ballot in a state as critical as Virginia is a shocking turn from previous elections in which every major candidate, even long shots like Republican Alan Keyes and Democrat Dennis Kucinich, have been able to make the Old Dominion’s ballot.
Failure to make Virginia’s ballot is particularly damaging to Gingrich, Romney’s toughest opponent and the favorite of Virginia voters, a recent Quinnipiac University poll showed.
“Newt Gingrich, a resident of Virginia, should have already been aware of this,” said Wendell Walker, sixth district Republican chairman. “I know he’s been through a campaign change, but that to me in politics would be the first thing I take care of.”
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Gingrich was going to explore launching a write-in campaign, but that’s not allowed in Virginia primaries.
A conservative group, Citizens for the Republic, joined with former Virginia Democratic Party Chairman Paul Goldman to challenge the disqualification of Gingrich and Perry, Politico reported. Perry later announced that he would file a lawsuit challenging his exclusion.
On Gingrich’s Facebook page, a campaign staffer compared the setback to Pearl Harbor, which prompted Romney to joke in New Hampshire: “I think it’s more like Lucille Ball at the chocolate factory.”
The fallout has some in Virginia clamoring for changes in state election rules, which are considered among the toughest in the country. Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a Romney critic, told supporters in an email, “our own laws have reduced our relevance,” and warned that the battleground state would be overlooked in the Super Tuesday primary. Cuccinelli suggested lawmakers reduce the number of signatures candidates must obtain.
There is speculation that Gingrich and Perry were rejected because Virginia Republicans used stricter criteria to judge the validity of voters’ signatures, including checking each voter’s current address. The blog Ballot Access News reported that the GOP gave candidates a free pass in previous elections but checked the petitions more diligently this year after Mike Osborne, an independent candidate for state delegate, sued the party over its procedure for verifying signatures.
However, state party officials insisted nothing changed from previous election cycles. Gingrich and Perry simply failed to meet the standard, they said.
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Chris Woodfin, third district GOP chairman, said Perry failed to submit 10,000 signatures and Gingrich turned in only a few more than the bare minimum, making it likely that just a few disqualified signatures would prevent him from getting on the ballot.
“I didn’t hear from a lot of these campaigns until the beginning of December or after that. They had since July 1,” Woodfin said. “Some other people might have sympathy for them. I don’t.”
