By Rick Sincere
Eleven Libertarian candidates for the House of Representatives from Virginia and the party’s U.S. Senate candidate all turned in the minimum number of signatures to qualify for the November ballot before the deadline on Tuesday, June 10.
These candidates would constitute what’s called a “full slate” contesting the state’s congressional seats.
Every House candidate submitted more than the minimum number of 1,000 signatures. Senate candidate Robert Sarvis turned in “between 15,000 and 17,000,” he told me. Statewide candidates must submit a total number of 10,000 signatures that includes 400 signatures from each of the 11 House districts.
Three of the LP candidates — Will Hammer in the Sixth Congressional District, Jeffrey Carson in the Eighth Congressional District, and Bill Redpath in the Tenth District — have already been informed by the State Board of Elections that they have qualified for the ballot. Hammer is running against incumbent Bob Goodlatte (R-Roanoke), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Carson and Redpath are running for open seats made vacant by the retirements of, respectively, Jim Moran (D-VA8) and Frank Wolf (R-VA10).
Read the full article here.
Thanks to Mike Kane for the link.
We had one. I was pushed off of it because I am a ballot access contractor. Then the chair of the committee became a ballot access contractor in her own state, just as she had been previously. So I guess we kind of do have an industry representative on the committee, except that she is not really in the business to the extent I am so does not know what I know and besides the committee is no longer focused on optimizing petition management – just on the legal and lobbying side, primarily legal, and has not done much on that since the lawyers have been too busy to do much of anything at last report.
Paulie,
We should have a committee that actually works on ballot access for candidates with an industrial representative…you.
George
LP is made up of many different people. The story I got second hand was that Sarvis ignored advice from people with more experience in running and working on petition drives such as Bill Redpath and Bob Lynch and thought he could save money by running things his way and instead it delayed things unneccessarily. For that matter Bob also delayed things early on in the drive because he did not want to work in cold weather and felt he had plenty of time to finish, and he also waited longer than he should have before trying to bring in more help because he wanted to keep more of it for himself. Meanwhile because Rob though he could save money Bob got shuffled around in a suboptimal manner. And the whole time they were trying to convince more people to run to come up with a full slate. The last candidates jumped in very late in the game.
For that matter I could have worked there back in February. I went to the Virginia convention and then the Students for Liberty convention in DC the next weekend so I did not want to take the bus back to Alabama then back to DC then back to Alabama all within a week. So I was stuck in a motel in Richmond for five days doing nothing. I put the word out that if someone could put me up and ride around with me to witness my signatures (not even collect any themselves if they are not into that) I could work and not even charge for the signatures and that this could be anywhere in the state, but not a single LP member anywhere in the state was willing and able to do that. For that matter I could have stayed in a motel if the party or Rob paid for it and if someone could take me around and work with me. I realize a lot of people are busy with their own jobs, but not everyone – some people are retired, out of work, or have jobs they can do from anywhere. For that matter, Bob was not very eager to have me work there even as a semi-volunteer because it could cut into signatures he could eventually get.
Later in the drive, when it looked like not all of the House candidates were likely to make it, it would have made sense to do a triage assessment as far as where petitioners were sent to in order to maximize how many would be on the ballot with a safe margin for validity. What was done instead was to try to get them all on with many of them having a margin that was not very safe. I understand really wanting to have that full slate talking point, but trying to achieve it in the face of reality probably cost us one or several of those races that could have been saved if we had cut our losses in one or two of the others a few days earlier instead.
There were also some other screw ups such as one district had two candidates getting signatures for House at one point, and the one that got the larger number of signatures dropped out. Another district had someone that claimed to have several hundred signatures, then disappeared. The whole statewide turn-in was pushed off until late in the afternoon on the last possible day, so the notarizations were not double checked and some petitioners (especially with being tired and in a hurry) were missing stuff or mixing things up on notarizations. I caught some of it because I volunteered to help them fill in the printed part of the signoffs or held some of the petitions and went through them on my own at one point, but there were a lot more that I did not get to look at.
So yeah, even after 40 plus years we still screw up.
“paulie June 16, 2014 at 11:59 pm
Well, people are not perfect. It took a while to even recruit all the candidates and convince them to run, and they may have spread resources too thin.”
The Libertarian Party has been around since 1971. The Libertarian Party has had petition drives in Virginia many times since then. How long does it take to get your act together?
Well, people are not perfect. It took a while to even recruit all the candidates and convince them to run, and they may have spread resources too thin.
It was no secret as to when the Virginia petition deadline was, and how many valid signatures were needed for each office. The LP candidates there should have gotten their shit together earlier.
There were some details that could have been better managed. I did come in, but only for the last not-quite-a-week due to Alabama running past when I thought I could get freed up. In that time I did get shuffled around a bit especially on the last day. Other petitioners told me of other things earlier in the drive that could have been managed better so that there would not have been a last minute crunch.
“Chuck Moulton June 16, 2014 at 6:46 pm
Virginia won’t have a full slate. Already the 9th district candidate was disqualified for not submitting enough valid signatures. 3 congressional candidates are already on the ballot. Tabulation will go on for weeks to determine the fate of Sarvis and the other 7 congressional candidates up in the air.”
I offered to go to Virginia to work on this petition drive back in February. I was told that they did not need any outside help, but they’d call me later if they needed me. I finally got a call back around the last week of May. I had to turn it down due to other commitments.
If they would have simply taken me up on my offer back in February, all of the candidates could have qualified for the ballot.
Virginia won’t have a full slate. Already the 9th district candidate was disqualified for not submitting enough valid signatures. 3 congressional candidates are already on the ballot. Tabulation will go on for weeks to determine the fate of Sarvis and the other 7 congressional candidates up in the air.
Congrats to Virginia. Good luck to them all!!
Good Job! That means we’ll have Full Slates for federal candidates in a number of states, including smaller ones like Montana.
Excellent work by the Libertarian Party of Virginia!
Everyone should visit their candidates page and give these fine candidates some money.