On Thursday the Virginia State Board of Elections announced that Robert Sarvis had qualified to be on November ballot for US Senate along with Democrat Mark Warner and Republican Ed Gillespie. However, he will not be attending the first Senate debate on July 26th at the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. The hosts of the debate, the Virginia Bar Association, made the decision to invite only Mark Warner and Ed Gillespie. Their president, John L. Walker III, issued this statement,
It is the VBA’s understanding that Mr. Sarvis qualified with the State Board of Elections yesterday to be on the statewide ballot for the 2014 Virginia U.S. Senate elections in November. Notwithstanding this late development, in the VBA’s judgment, Mr. Sarvis does not meet the participant criteria set forth in the VBA’s debate policy. Consequently, the VBA does not intend to extend an invitation to Mr. Sarvis for the senatorial debate at the VBA’s Summer Meeting next month.”
Under the Bar Associations rules only candidates are invited who “have a reasonable chance of being elected.”
Sarvis said now that he is on the ballot he will ask the Bar Association to reconsider inviting him to the debate,
“I have to ask: Is 145,000 votes not significant to them? How many people watched their debate?”
Sarvis received that number of votes, 6.5% of the total, when he ran for Governor against Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Ken Cuccinelli in 2013.
Sarvis is a software engineer, a Fairfax native, and a graduate of TJHSST. He has degrees from Harvard University, George Mason University, and New York Law School.
