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Supervisor of Elections Brevard County, Florida |
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Supervisor of Elections Brevard County, Florida |
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Procedures for qualifying and running for office in Florida are established by the state election code, Chapters 97 to 106 of the Florida Statutes. The election code is available from any elections office or can be viewed online. Qualifying for federal, state or multi-county special district offices (e.g., Sebastian Inlet District) is handled by the Division of Elections in Tallahassee. Qualifying for county or single-county special district offices (e.g., Canaveral Port Authority) is done by the Supervisor of Elections office. Each municipality's city or town clerk handles its own qualifying. Qualifying information for 2008 can be found here.
The first step in running for office is to file an Appointment of Campaign Treasurer and Designation of Campaign Depository form (DS-DE 9). (Campaign treasurers and campaign depositories are not required for candidates for special district offices if the candidate does not collect contributions and has only the filing fee as an expense.) This form can be obtained from, and is subsequently filed with, the Supervisor of Elections (or other qualifying officer). You may not open a bank account, collect or spend any money on your campaign before you file this form, but you may talk to people about your campaign at any time. Once you have filed your designation, you are an announced candidate, and you must follow the rules outlined in Chapter 106 of the election code regarding campaign finance requirements. A copy of this section of the election code will be given to you when you obtain your designation form.
The qualifying period varies as follows depending on the office you are seeking:
When you qualify, the Supervisor of Elections (or other qualifying officer) will give you a packet of papers that need to be filed, including a financial disclosure form. (Some of these forms can also be found on the Division of Elections forms page.) If you do not file all of your paperwork and pay your qualifying fee or submit a letter from the elections office stating that you have met the petition requirements by noon of the last day of qualifying, your name will not be placed on the ballot.
The fee to run for office is based on a percentage of the salary for the office you are seeking. This fee consists of a three percent filing fee, a two percent party fee, and a one percent election assessment, except that candidates running with no party affiliation or for nonpartisan offices do not pay the party fee, and a few municipal offices do not require the election assessment fee. You must pay the qualifying fee by a check from your campaign account.
As an alternative to paying the qualifying fee, you may qualify by having petitions signed, which is called the Petition Process. The petition format shall be prescribed by the Division of Elections and shall be used by the candidate to reproduce petitions for circulation. Signatures may not be obtained until the candidate has filed the appointment of campaign treasurer and designation of campaign depository pursuant to Section 106.021 of the Florida Statutes. If the candidate is running for an office that requires a group or district designation, the petition must indicate that designation and, if it does not, the signatures are not valid. Any registered voter in the jurisdiction of the office you are seeking may sign your petition. The number of signatures needed is equal to one percent of the total number of registered voters in that jurisdiction in the preceeding General Election. The signatures must be submitted for verification to the Supervisor of Elections office by March 31, 2008 for federal and judicial offices and May 19, 2008 for state, multi-county, county and district offices.
If you are holding one office and seeking another you must resign your current office at least 10 days prior to the first day of qualifying for the office being sought. The resignation must be effective no later than the earlier of the following dates: the date that you would take office, if elected, or the date your successor is required to take office. The resignation requirement does not apply to candidates for federal office; however, no candidate may qualify for more than one office if the terms of the offices overlap.
If you qualify as a Democrat or Republican, your name will appear on the Primary Election ballot if there are others running for the same office in the same party. (If the only candidates who qualify are from the same party, the race will appear on the Primary ballot but all voters will be able to vote on that contest -- this is called a Universal Primary Contest.) The name of the Primary candidate who receives the most votes is placed on the General Election ballot. If you run as a minor party candidate, or with no party affiliation, your name will appear only on the General Election ballot.
Write-in candidates, other than those running for President and Vice President, qualify during the same time period as regular candidates. There is no qualifying fee for write-in candidates. If someone qualifies for an office as a write-in candidate, their name does not appear on the ballot, but the notation "Write-in" and a blank line will appear on the General Election ballot beneath all of the other candidates for the office. Only write-in votes for qualified candidates are counted. Write-in candidates must reside in the district they seek to represent at the time of qualification.
If you have any questions about running for office that have not been answered by the web page, please contact us by e-mail or call 321-264-6746.