Judge: 'Too late' to get on Va. ballot

WASHINGTON -- A U.S. federal judge in Virginia on Friday refused to order that candidates Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman be added to the ballot in the state's March 6 Republican presidential primary election after they failed to qualify.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul were the only two candidates to qualify for the primary in Virginia by submitting the 10,000 verifiable signatures by the deadline. Romney is the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination to face Democratic President Barack Obama on Nov. 6.

Perry and the other candidates sued Virginia election officials to be added to the ballot, arguing that the state's qualification process limited voter access to the candidates of their choosing.

But Judge John Gibney ruled the candidates filed their legal challenges too late, finding the harm they suffered began when they started collecting the necessary signatures because they were required to use Virginia residents to do so. Such a requirement was likely unconstitutional and had the candidates sued earlier, the judge said he could have granted permission to use people from outside Virginia to collect signatures.

"It is too late for the court to allow them to gather more signatures -- the absentee ballots must go out now," Gibney wrote in an opinion issued after a hearing in Richmond.

Meanwhile, Gingrich urged a political action committee that backs his election bid to fix any inaccuracies in a film it financed that attacks Romney's role at Boston-based private equity firm Bain Capital Llc.

"I'm calling on them to either edit out every single mistake or to pull the entire film, but to not run the film if it has errors in it," he said Friday as he campaigned in Orlando.

Romney is depicted as "more ruthless than Wall Street" in the 30-minute film paid for by Winning Our Future, the super PAC that operates independently of Gingrich's campaign.

The former U.S. House speaker has been reframing his assault on Romney amid calls from GOP commentators, his campaign rivals and business leaders to tone down his attacks. Gingrich had been the most aggressive of the candidates in questioning Romney's work at Bain.