How to Become a Petition Candidate

After my last post I realized that I don’t actually know how someone becomes a petition candidate. I’ve never run a petition campaign or run against a petition candidate. According to the SC Election Commission, here’s how it happens:

To be nominated by petition, a candidate must file a nominating petition containing the valid signatures of at least 5% of the active, registered voters in the geographical area the office represents. The 5% is based on the total number of registered voters in the geographical area 120 days prior to the election. No petition requires more than 10,000 signatures.

The last date to file a petition for the November 4, 2008 General Election is 12:00 noon, July 15, 2008. There is no filing fee. Petition candidates for multi-county offices must file their petitions with the State Election Commission. Petition candidates for county wide or less than county wide offices must file their petitions with their county election commission.

If a candidate fails to file properly, their name will not appear on the ballot.

The petition must be in a form prescribed in S.C. Code of Laws section 7-11-80, including being printed in 8.5″ x 14″ format. (See link to sample petition below).

The Election Commission website shows that 58,683 voters live in Senate District 20 (which could be an old number), so Frank Caggiano would need 2,934 petitions to become a candidate. Because a good number of those will be thrown out, he would probably need to go armed with a good 3,500 petitions.  That’s a lot.

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