I turned in around 50 voter petition signatures just before noon today to be a qualified write-in candidate for State Assembly. Apparently I slightly misunderstood the rules – was told today that write-in candidates can submit between 40 and 60 raw signatures with some opportunity to replace invalid ones (40 valid signatures being the amount needed), but replacement signatures must be submitted by 5:00 pm today, and furthermore the total number of submitted signatures is limited to 60. So if I submitted 50, then I can submit an additional 10. Hopefully I have 40 that are valid and that won't be necessary, but am waiting to hear back from them.
If I do have to get more, there may be a time crunch again this afternoon, so if you are a registered voter in roughly the eastern half of SF (17th Assembly district) and haven't signed, or can help me collect signatures in the next few hours, please let me know!
Okay, just talked to the Elections Department and they're telling me 32 signatures were found valid out of 48 raw signatures submitted, so I have until 5:00 pm (2 hours) to turn in up to 12 more signatures in order to get 8 more valid ones.
Again, if you can sign and haven't, or can help me collect them, please call me ASAP – (415) 625-3733! (Don't reply here as I won't be on the computer to see an email message.)
So, I turned in what I believe were enough valid replacement signatures to the SF Elections Department before 5pm today, and was told just prior to the deadline that no one else has filed as a write in candidate for Assembly district 17. Although I haven't gotten confirmation yet, barring some very unexpected development I should be on the ballot in November!
Thanks to Mike Denny and Jeff Yunes for meeting me to contribute a couple signatures in the final hours – every one counts.
Interestingly, some of the paperwork the Elections folks provided lists the filing fee that I (or someone else) would have ordinarily had to pay in order to appear on the ballot in this race without going the write-in route, and it's worse than I thought – $952.91.
As with many other things government does, it's hard to understand why there isn't more outrage about the #GovernmentGreed that motivates them to put such a price tag on running for office. It's a practice that obviously works to exclude poor people (in many cases the same people Democrats pander to and pretend to care about) from the top levels of government.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
Chair, Libertarian Party of San Francisco
Candidate for State Assembly, District 17
(415) 625-FREE