Radtke Wants to Change Petition Rules in the Middle of Collection Process

While the Republican Party of Virginia is still trying to recover from the disaster of not having a strong enough field campaign to get most of the major presidential candidates on the ballot, it looks like some Republicans are scared that something similar will happen again when the GOP candidates for US Senate try to get on the ballot.

The main thing that has some folks worried is that the General Assembly still hasn’t redrawn the boundaries of Virginia’s 11 Congressional districts (which it has to do every 10 years). Since you’re required to get 400 signatures from every Congressional district, candidates like Jamie Radtke claim they don’t know the areas they need to gather signatures from.

Since candidates could begin circulating petitions on January 1, most of them are working off of the old Congressional districts. While commonsense might suggest this would be a good tactic, it could backfire on them because state law says the signatures must be drawn from the new districts if the new boundaries are drawn before the March 29 petition deadline. This could cause some problems for any campaign, but it has to be especially worrisome for the Virginia GOP after it’s already proven it doesn’t have the organization to handle gathering signatures this election cycle.

It’s with all this in mind that Jamie Radtke sent a letter to Speaker William Howell (R-Stafford) and Sen. Thomas Norment (R-James City) asking that the General Assembly take up the issue when it starts its 2012 session on Wednesday. The crutch of the letter is that she wants the current districts to be used for the 400 signatures requirement and that petitions stating that the primary is on June 12, 2012 should be valid even if it’s rescheduled.

Radtke notes that whether it’s undertaken by the legislature or the courts, redistricting could take months, potentially leaving candidates with only weeks or days to gather the appropriate number of signatures from each district.

She also points out that while a recent State Board of Elections bulletin notes that the primary slated for June 12 could be pushed back if the redistricting process is dragged out, that could create another problem.

Under current rules, a change in the primary date would disqualify all signatures gathered with a June 12, 2012 date listed on the petition form. That means any signatures gathered now would be invalid.

It’s worth noting that it was Radtke – and not George Allen, who has already won multiple statewide campaigns and has a strong contingent of volunteers – who sent in the letter. If she’s writing a letter to the General Assembly now and asking for the rules to be changed in the middle of the collection process, then she must really be worried that her field campaign isn’t strong enough to get the required number of signatures. Either that, or her campaign isn’t smart enough to realize they should concentrate on the areas that are most likely to remain in their current Congressional district.