Running for office?
If you have been thinking about running for office but didn’t want to take the plunge until you learned more about what was involved, you’ve come to the right place. Here, we hope to answer some of your basic questions about what you would need to do – and how we can help – to throw your hat into the local political ring.
Petitioning. Once you have made up your mind that you want to run for a town office (such as Town Council, Town Supervisor, Town Clerk, etc.), the first thing you should do is to get in touch with the town Democratic Committee (that’s us). We will get you set up with the designating petitions you will need to get your name on the ballot.
Petitioning is not required for village offices.
Your petitions are subject to a certain number of rules and, while there aren’t that many of them, they are strictly enforced. You will need a certain number of signatures – for town-wide office, the current requirement for Democrats to get on the ballot is 49 signatures. The petition signatures must be witnessed by a registered Democrat. The petitions may only be signed within a very specific time window and can only be filed with the County Board of Elections within a very specific time window.
Fortunately, the Committee can help you with all these administrative details. That’s why your first step after you decide to take the plunge should be to get in touch with us.
Primary Elections. It doesn’t seem likely but you may face a primary challenge to your bid to be the Democratic candidate for the office of your choice. This simply means that, during primary election season (the period before primaries in September), you will have to do some campaigning among Democrats to represent to them why you are the best qualified for the job. You should also be aware that any assistance we provide for you in terms of information, petitions, etc., we will also provide to your primary challengers. No favorites at this point in the race; we prefer to let the voters decide.
General Election. Once you have survived any primary challenges, it will be time for the general election. At this point, our Committee can be of real assistance to you, providing access to candidate training, handling any negative campaigning tossed at you so that you can remain loftily above the fray, contributing financially to your campaign, and helping you to find volunteers if you need them.
However, you should not try to depend solely on the Committee. The smart way to go will be to assemble your own (small) campaign staff composed minimally of a campaign manager, a fundraising/financial reporting person, and someone who will be charged with publicity for your campaign (although press outreach can be handled by your campaign manager). The Committee is here to help and we will support you as much as possible but we can’t run your campaign for you.
You should also be aware that your campaign committee will be required to file a certain amount of paperwork with the County Board of Elections, most notably your campaign finance disclosure forms. The paperwork for most local elections is minimal but it will be very important that your campaign finance person keep very thorough, very accurate records and file all reports in a timely manner.
We hope this doesn’t sound terribly daunting. The key to mounting a competitive local campaign is simply tapping the right people and building a team that you can count on.
And don’t forget to include our Committee as part of that team.
With the right set of people behind you, you can successfully campaign for office and, more importantly, your successful campaign will be one of the first steps in creating a better Sidney for us all.
If you have any other questions about tossing your hat into the ring, please use the Contact page of this web site to get in touch!