Rachel Maddow has a point. Virginia did set Gingrich and Perry up. Only Ron Paul and Romney will be on the ballot because the Virginia Board of Elections said that Gingrich and Perry didn't have enough signatures. The reality is that THEY DID have enough signatures but all of those signatures may not have qualified.
What is foul is that they created a process where they will NOT check all of Romney's signatures but they would check the rest. They justified this approach by saying that, while the law requires 10k valid signatures, they wouldn't validate signatures for candidates that submit more than 15k. Only Romney submitted more than 15k (16.0). Paul submitted almost 15k (14.4k), so they let him slide. At 11.9k, Perry gets all of his signatures reviewed.
What is also foul is that it may not have been a coincidence that the Romney camp knew that the golden number was 16k. The Governor of VA wants to be VP and that is illegal if Gingrich is the nominee. Gingrich is from Virginia and must choose a running mate from a different state to satisfy the 12th amendment.
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