Richmond, Virginia-- A lawsuit seeking to put Newt Gingrich on the ballot for Virginia's March 6, 2012, primary election was filed Thursday in the Circuit Court of Richmond County by a Virginia attorney and tea party activist, Jonathon Moseley.
The lawsuit can be downloaded at:
Link.
The lawsuit alleges that Newt Gingrich did in fact satisfy the requirement of Va. code 24.2-545 to file 10,000 petition signatures. Over 11,000 signatures were actually filed by Newt Gingrich's campaign. The lawsuit contends that many of Gingrich's petition signatures were improperly excluded.
Under Virginia law, Newt Gingrich's 11,000+ petition signatures were handed over to the Republican Party of Virgina (RPV) by the State Board of Elections, where they are initially filed.
The Republican Party of Virginia has not explained what exactly where the defects that it found with Newt Gingrich's 11,000 petition signatures. In a statement on December 28, 2011, the RPV clearly stated that it had not disclosed the supposed deficiencies.
However, public comments have suggested that missing, incomplete, or illegible addresses accompanying signatures on the ballot petitions are the main reasons that so many of Newt Gingrich's signatures were disqualified.
Today's lawsuit, Moseley v. State Board of Elections, argues that addresses are not actually required under Va. Code 24.2-545 and State Board of Elections regulation 1 VAC 20-50-20. That is, the failure to provide an address is not a "material" deficiency sufficient to invalidate the signature.
The lawsuit also argues that there is often not enough room on the standardized form created by the State Board of Elections to write a complete address legibly, however, the RPV was required to research any voter who could reasonably be identified to verify their voter registration status.
Petitions are supposed to be grouped and filed separately for each County or city, or at least each congressional district, so most voters can reasonably be identified if their county or city is already known. The lawsuit alleges that the RPV was not permitted to reflexively exclude signatures without complete addresses without first researching the voter list to see if they could determine the voter registration status of the signer (such as if an incomplete address can be matched or there is only one person in the city with the name in question).
The lawsuit also argues that the RPV must presume that petition signatures are valid unless proven otherwise, because a false signature on the petition is a Class 5 felony under Virginia law under Va. Code § 24.2-1016. Because signatures are made under penalty of law, subject to felony prosecution, the signer's attestation that they are a qualified voter must be presumed to be valid unless evidence proves otherwise.
Today's lawsuit, Moseley v. State Board of Elections, was rushed into court to preserve the ballot petitions, to obtain a copy of the ballot petitions for inspection and review, and to ask the RPV to identify why exactly petition signatures were not counted as valid, and obtain counts by category.
Virginia attorney Jonathon Moseley intends to quickly amend the lawsuit to add additional Republican voters as co-Plaintiffs, encourage the Gingrich campaign to join the lawsuit or file a better one along similar lines, and to refine the legal claims and arguments in the lawsuit to fit this rather unusual situation.
Moseley will be seeking additional Virginia voters to join the lawsuit, legal expertise to help refine the lawsuit and work on the case, and financial contributions.
Jonathon Moseley heads the 912 Fairfax Tea Party in Fairfax, Virginia, and recently worked on legal defense for Christine O'Donnell after her run for the U.S. Senate in Delaware in 2010. Moseley ran Christine O"Donnell's 2008 primary campaign (convention contest) in Delaware when she was first nominated for the U.S. Senate against Joe Biden.
Christine O'Donnell has endorsed Mitt Romney, who qualified for the Virginia primary ballot.
Jon Moseley is predicting that the Republican ticket emerging from Tampa, Florida, will be Mitt Romney for President and Newt Gingrich for Vice President.
However, Moseley's personal preference would be Michelle Bachmann, who apparently did not submit any petition signatures for the Virginia primary, and Newt Gingrich over Mitt Romney. While Moseley would like to be able to vote for Michelle Bachmann in the Virginia primary, he believes his second choice Newt Gingrich should be on the ballot because he submitted more than the 10,000 ballot petition signatures required.
The lawsuit is not, for the moment, officially connected with the Newt Gingrich campaign, although Moseley is urging the Gingrich campaign to either join the lawsuit or file a superior one along similar lines.
