Federal Inmate Keith Judd Receiving Sizable Percent of Vote in West Virginia Democratic Primary
Barack Obama was not the only Democrat on the ballot on Tuesday in West Virginia's Democratic Presidential Primary. Keith Judd - also known as Inmate No. 11593-051 at the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana, Texas - was running against him.
Judd, who is serving out a 17.5 year sentence for extortion, currently has received 40 percent of the vote, with 83 percent of precincts reporting, according to The Associated Press. Obama currently has received 60 percent of the vote.
Obama's lack of popularity in West Virginia has been well-documented. The state's governor Earl Ray Tomblin and it's junior senator Joe Manchin, both Democrats, have kept their distance from the president.
A further potential embarrassment for the Democrats, as The Charleston Gazette reports, Judd only needs 15 percent of the vote - which, indeed, it looks like he has accomplished - in order to be entitled to have at least one delegate represent him at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. this summer.
Judd would not be the first Democratic challenger to Obama to qualify for delegate representation at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. In Oklahoma's Democratic primary in March, Randall Terry, a Democratic candidate who founded the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue and has more than 50 arrests under his belt, received 18 percent of the vote in the primary, giving him one delegate.
It is unknown what type of effect Judd's status as a federal prisoner might have on the delegate allocation and selection to the convention.