Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich announced his intention to stage a write-in campaign in his home state of Virginia after the state's Republican Party said that the former Speaker of the House of Representatives failed to get the number of signatures required for his name to be on the state's primary ballot March 6.
Speaking to News4 outside the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception Sunday, Gingrich said, "We're disappointed, but it was our fault [as a campaign]."
The Republican Party of Virginia announced Saturday that both Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry had failed to submit the required 10,000 signatures to appear on the ballot. The deadline for candidates to submit signatures was 5 p.m. Thursday.
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman also failed to meet the deadline--meaning that the only two GOP candidates who will be listed on Virginia's primary ballot will be former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul.
Virginia law prohibits candidates from staging write-in campaigns during primary elections. However, Gingrich called for the law to be amended.
"We're getting an amazing number of people who believe Virginians ought to have the right to choose and shouldn't be restricted to just two [candidates]," Gingrich said. "It's time for [Virginia] to change [the law]. If something's wrong, they ought to fix it."
