I signed a petition early in the year that all candidates would be on the ballot, now I read where Obama's camp went out and did petitons for their candidate separately.

What is this bull? Are you for all candidates getting on the ballot and may the best candidate win or is Obama's campaign like the Republicans? Stick a knife in anyones back just so they win.

So get on the ballot first? That position does not win when voters know who they will vote for when they go to the polls.  

Every candidate has to collect its own signatures to get on the primary ballot.  That's the case in Virginia and every other state, as far as I know.  I've never heard of a case of a petition for ALL candidates to be on the ballot.  Has anyone else ever heard of such a thing?  It seems to make no sense; I mean, "all candidates" could mean dozens if not hundreds of people.  Hell, if I knew someone else was going to collect the signatures, I might throw my name in there just for fun! :)

who knows:

Virginia election law requires that any candidate who wants to be on the VA Presidential primary ballot has to collect a minimum of 10,000 valid signatures statewide and a minimum of 400 valid signatures in each of VA's 11 congressional districts. The DNC has ruled that any state that requires a Presidential candidate to collect more than 5,000 valid signatures to get on its Presidential primary ballot violates DNC rules, and that the DNC will not accredit delegates to its national convention from such a state. In both 2003-2004 and in 2007-2008, the DNC and DPVA reached a negotiated agreement regarding how to bridge these conflicting requirements. Under that negotiated agreement, DPVA promised the DNC this year that it would collect a minimum of 5,000 valid signatures on a consolidated petition containing the names of 8 Democratic Presidential candidates (Clinton, Edwards, Obama, Dodd, Biden, Richardson, Kucinich, and Gravel). That leaves each of those 8 candidates as only needing to collect a minimum of 5,000 signatures for their own candidacies, thereby meeting the DNC requirements.

So there you have it, a hybrid of sorts.  Verrry interesting.

or the people collecting the signatures at a fund raiser in Charlottesville, where Mark Warner was the guest speaker, did not now what they were doing when they asked for signatures.

They were explicit and the petiton read for all 8 candidates to get on the ballot. They even said no other petition would be required. If one notes, the 5th district was second in signatures after the 11th. I bet the same people were collecting signatures at fund raisers in the 11th saying the exact same thing.

Note: I did not sign the one with Warner, because I had already signed one at a fund raiser for Connie Brennan, when Gov. Kaine was the guest speaker.

If my memory serves me correctly, there was even such a notice in a newspaper that Gov. Kaine had authorized such a petition? OR was it that I ran across the petitions at 2 fund raisers?

NOW the big question? If some one signed that petition will they still be able to sign another petition when asked by the individual candidate running for President. If not, did other people sign both petitions? If they cannot, what will happen to the individual petitions if they have repeat signatures on both?

I sure hope the rest of the campaigns read the fine print?

only 10,000 total signatures are needed, why did Obama collect around 18,000 signatures. Yeh I know over collecting is the way to go because someone not registered could sign, but that figure is usually only 10 percent over the requested amount.

Since a candidate needs 400 from each district, does that mean they only needed 200 individual if they got 200 on the 8 candidate petitions?

Virginia needs to get in tune and stop this over kill in everything it does.  

unless they got behind and had to rush to beat the deadline.  50-100% more signatures than needed is much closer to the norm.  Signatures can be invalided for any number of picky technical reasons -- a voter from county X signs a petition meant for county Y; voter uses a post office box instead of his voting address; voter moves, doesn't update registration, and gives her new address, petition circulator signs his own petition -- plus there tend to be a small but significant number of people who sign two petitions or more.

I agree, though, that it's time to change state law and cut down on the number of signatures.

20 percent.

That is the amount of leway I gave myself. Of course I got my own signatures and did not depend on others.

It's a combination of both.  The DPV allows people to sign for  all candidates as an easier way for the lesser known candidates to get on the ballot.

However, it is the responsibility of the candidates to ensure they have enough signatures to get on the ballot.

In 2003/2004 there was a seperate petition form for each candidate. I get the impression from the first comment that there was on petition form for all..I'm not sure that is valid unless they changed the rules.

I am beginning to think I was hood winked into signing a petiton on false pretenses.

I have done a Google search and DPVA search but cannot find any where that such an order was given that all 8 candidates could be on one petition.

Guess I have to wait till tomorrow to find out what the story maybe.

and I can assure you that they really exist.  The State Board of Elections approved the multi-candidate petitions in 2003.  They count toward each of the eight listed nominees' totals.  The larger campaigns (Obama, Clinton, probably Edwards) will meet the requirement without them, but they are probably necessary to get middle-tier candidates (Biden, Dodd and Richardson) on the ballot, and Gravel and Kucinich will likely have trouble even with the 50% done for them.  The only catch is that a signature can only count on a sign-for-eight or on individual candidate petitions, not both.

Thanks for clarifing

I was at the DNC meeting on Friday to see my man Obama speak and there were people there collecting signatures for all 8 candidates.

Having been heavily involved in Jim Webb's statewide petition drive, I can say that it is an organizational feat to accomplish the task that was just completed by the Obama campaign.  It is one more sign of Barack Obama's leadership and the inspiration people get from him.

On to a better America !!!