[EL] Cantor as a write-in

[Jerald Lentini]

After hearing some uncertainty in news reports about Majority Leader
Cantor's upset defeat in his primary, I looked into Virginia's sore-loser
law. It reads to me that Cantor can't try an independent or third-party
challenge, but may still mount a write-in campaign. In other words, he
can't Lieberman, but he might Murkowski.

Here's the relevant language from the sore-loser law:
https://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+24.2-520

§ 24.2-520. Declaration of candidacy required.

A candidate for nomination by primary for any office shall be required to
file a written declaration of candidacy on a form prescribed by the State
Board. The declaration shall include the name of the political party of
which the candidate is a member, a designation of the office for which he
is a candidate, and a statement that, *if defeated in the primary, his name
is not to be printed on the ballots for that office in the succeeding
general election*. The declaration shall be acknowledged before some
officer who has the authority to take acknowledgments to deeds, or attested
by two witnesses who are qualified voters of the election district.

By definition, a write-in candidate's name doesn't appear printed on the
ballots, so this doesn't appear to preclude a write-in campaign.

Virginia's rules for write-ins are here, and also appear to support the
feasibility of a Cantor write-in campaign:
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+24.2-644

With $1.5 million cash on hand as of his pre-primary FEC report, he could
certainly keep the lights on in his campaign office until November. Doing
so might provide a boost to the Democratic candidate, however, since it
would mean likely splitting the GOP vote - this could give the VA GOP a
strong incentive to try to keep Cantor from running.

-JR

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