Judge John Gibney heard the case brought by Rick Perry and the other Republican candidates who joined the law suit, and he made the decision. Perry and the other candidates will not compete in Virginia. They knew the rules and did not do what was necessary to get their names on the ballot in a timely fashion.
“They knew the rules in Virginia many months ago; the limitations on circulators affected them as soon as they began to circulate petitions,” he writes. “The plaintiffs could have challenged the Virginia law at that time. Instead, they waited until after the time to gather petitions had ended and they had lost the political battle to be on the ballot; then, on the eve of the printing of absentee ballots, they decided to challenge Virginia’s laws. In essence, they played the game, lost, and then complained that the rules were unfair.”
The decision means Perry, as well as Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman, will not appear on the ballot in the state’s March 6 primary.
