Tip for New Candidates - Verify those signatures!

To run for office, at least in California, you need to collect signatures to put your name on the ballot. It sounds like a simple thing; you get a number (usually) 20 of registered voters in your District, who sign your papers, "nominating" you for the office. The trick is making sure the person is a registered voters, votes at the address they list on the form and goes by that name.

Most Registrar of Voters suggest that you get at least half again as many signatures as required, in case some of them turn out to be "bad."

Here's a case in point: A friend of mine was running for local office and needed 20 signatures. Each and every person she went to was known personally to her. She has no doubt the signatures she handed in were all good. Guess what; they weren't. Of her 20, just one was "bad" because a married woman signed with her husband's name, not her own, maiden, name she was registered under. That one disqualified her from the ballot.

My friend was too late to get more signatures and was not able to run for election that year.