I don't have a dog in this fight, but...

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

It turns out that, in previous elections, the VA Republican Party has not checked the validity of signatures. If a candidate turned in 10,000 signatures it was assumed they were all valid, registered voters, and not forgeries at all.

In other words, theoretically, a team with a list and a bunch of Bics could assemble the 10,000 signatures for Alan Keyes in one pizza night.

And that's how the Gingrich team completed their signature drive.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...rginia-ballot/

Last week his campaign acknowledged they used paid volunteers to scramble to get the required 10,000 signatures but fell short after the former House speaker and Virginia resident boasted his campaign was submitting as many as 12,000-14,000 signatures.

On a campaign stop at an Algona chocolate store, the former House speaker said the "mistake" occurred because one of their workers committed fraud.

"We hired somebody who turned in false signatures. We turned in 11,100 – we needed 10,000 – 1,500 of them were by one guy who frankly committed fraud."

But don't blame Gingrich 100%; it's nearly impossible that it wouldn't happen, due to the prevalence of paid petitioners; and remember the Romney and Paul ballots are not being checked for this sort of thing, since they turned in 15,000.