According to the Virginian-Pilot, state senator Ken Stolle will not be primaried this year. His challenger, Craig Hudgins, failed to qualify due to the lack of signatures on his petitions.
On April 16, a local Republican official – Catherine Colgan, legislative district chairwoman for the 8th Senate District – disqualified Hudgins. She said Hudgins did not have the required 250 voter signatures on his petitions because many of them were invalid.
Colgan said Hudgins turned in 359 signatures. She then asked the city’s voter registrar to run the signatures for both Hudgins and Stolle through a computer to see if they matched valid voter names and addresses in the 8th District. Only 203 of Hudgins’ names were valid after the computer check, she said.
I have to wonder why so many candidates get disqualified for not having enough signatures. With over 100,000 registered voters in the 8th Senate district, coming up with 250 valid signatures should be an easy enough task.
With no challenger, Ken Stolle can now help brother Chris with his primary against Carolyn Weems. The winner will face Democrat Joe Bouchard for the seat in the 83rd House district formerly occupied by Leo Wardrup.
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VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Vivian, I’m sure you’ve seen this, but from what I can tell, candidates who fail are those who underestimate petitions. They push it off, and then try to get them all in a weekend, and in the rush, two things happen. They forget simple details, and they take just about anyone who they can get. Half the people aren’t registered here, and sometimes even those who do leave out things like zip codes, or write so sloppily that no one can make it out.
I really don’t think rookie candidates appreciate that signatures don’t just magically appear. It takes more time than they think it will to do it right.
The more time passes, the more glad that I am that a petition is required. Once upon a time, I thought it was a waste of time. Now, having seen the sort of candidates who can’t pull it off, I figure anybody who can’t get together 250 valid signatures quite likely has no business running for public office. That’s a pretty low bar.
I’m with you on this, Waldo. I really thought they were silly – that is, until I starting seeing candidates get DQ’d because they didn’t get the numbers.