By Burl Rolett
Virginia voters will have their say — sort of — in the tumultuous Republican primary race Tuesday.
The Virginia primary is one of 10 “Super Tuesday” contests Tuesday. With 437 delegates at stake, Super Tuesday is the biggest day on the primary schedule.
But a legal challenge to the qualifying process failed, leaving former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania off the Virginia ballot.
The result: None of the candidates is spending much time or money in the state, Rockbridge Area Republican Committee Chairman Bob James said.
“It’s a quiet election,” he said.
Only former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul managed to get their names on Tuesday’s ballot.
Virginia law requires candidates to submit a petition to the state’s electoral board with 10,000 signatures from registered voters to get on the primary ballot. Of the 10,000 signatures, at least 400 must come from each of the state’s 11 congressional districts.
The electoral board then sends the petitions to the Virginia Republican Party for verification.
Santorum did not submit a petition before the December deadline. Gingrich’s petition included 11,050 signatures, but the state Republican Party threw out more than 1,000 during the review process, leaving Gingrich below the 10,000-signature threshold.
Gingrich challenged the ruling in court, joining a lawsuit filed by former presidential candidate Rick Perry of Texas, who was also left off the Virginia ballot. They argued that Virginia’s ballot-access laws were burdensome and unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge John Gibney in Richmond ruled against Gingrich and the others. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the district court’s ruling. Earlier this month, Gingrich dropped the lawsuit, declining to appeal again.
James said the impact of the decision is simple.
“Romney wins Virginia,” he said.
Romney could win all of Virginia’s 46 pledged delegates, even though the state does not award delegates by a “winner-take-all” method.
Virginia awards three delegates to the highest vote-getter in each of its congressional districts. The remaining 13 delegates are divided proportionally among all candidates receiving more than 15 percent of the vote statewide.
But if one candidate receives more than 50 percent of the statewide vote, that candidate gets all 13 at-large delegates.
Chris Green, Rockbridge County coordinator for the Ron Paul campaign, said a landslide victory for Romney is not a foregone conclusion.
“It comes down to what Gingrich and Santorum [supporters] will vote for Paul,” he said.
Green said votes for Paul would also help Gingrich and Santorum by keeping Romney from sweeping Virginia’s 46 pledged delegates.
No candidate has passed the 50 percent threshold in any of the 10 primary contests leading up to Super Tuesday.
But with only two names on the ballot and a Virginia law that forbids write-in votes in primaries, Romney may be poised to do just that, according to a recent Christopher Newport University poll.
The poll, released last week, shows Romney with 53 percent of the vote, with Paul lagging 30 points behind.
James said he hopes for a decent voter turnout, despite the lack of competitiveness in next week’s primary. He said voter turnout rates in the Rockbridge area are usually about 20 percent for primaries.
“The big thing now,” he said, “is getting our people out [to vote].”
View 2012 Presidential Primary Results in a full screen map