[EL] Cantor as a write-in

[Wiley, Paul]

David Wasserman's rundown recognizes the same ambiguity: http://cookpolitical.com/story/7404

My understanding—having worked on a few Virginia campaigns and discussed this provision with Larry Sabato in the context of the Bolling/Cuccinelli fracas—is that a write-in would be allowed.
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Paul M. Wiley
Symposium Editor, Washington and Lee Law Review
Candidate for J.D., Class of 2015
Washington and Lee University School of Law
434-960-7101

On Jun 10, 2014, at 10:48 PM, Jerald Lentini <jerald.lentini at gmail.com<mailto:jerald.lentini at gmail.com>>
 wrote:

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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