The candidates did not necessarily know the petitions were fraudulent and in fact may have been defrauded themselves if they paid the collectors based on fraudulent signatures.

I agree that all signatures on a fraudulent petition should be tossed but the candidates should get a grace period to attempt to collect legit petitions. Not long deadlines are deadlines but if someone wants to attempt to rectify and believes they have the support then give them a chance. To an extent ballot access laws are bad for voters, so anything that could democratize that process would be good. IMO

I agree with you to some extent however ballot access laws are frequently needlessly complex and onerous. Often the reason is keep small grassroots efforts from taking hold. Most jobs you learn as you go and firing someone the first time they make a mistake is not a great way to get good workers. The governorship is a job so you should look at new politicians as new employees.

#11 & 12

Signature gathering is part of ballot access. As far as all campaigns, yes a professional politician will have a campaign staff to check this sort of stuff but a first time candidate won't necessarily have the staff for it yet or first time staff who are not yet masters of the art. They may or may not have heard the 1/3 rule (I hadn't) before hand.

Point is if they had to get fraudulent signature to get to 15k then giving them an extra week won't change anything. If the fraudulent signatures were gotten by people trying to scam them, and their staff wasn't trained enough then maybe a week might let them correct it. Just glad none of you were ever my bosses.

Note I would be saying the same thing if they were Democratic, Green, Libertarian, Socialist Party USA etc. This isn't about party to me but allowing Americans to have choices at the polls.