At least 42 Democratic and Republican candidates for partisan office in Florida have asked the Governor and Secretary of State to waive filing fees. Florida has the highest filing fees, by far, of any state. Candidates for congress need over $10,000. Florida has procedures for petitions in lieu of filing fees, but the health crisis has made petitioning very difficult. See this story.
On April 2, the Florida Secretary of State issued an emergency proclamation deleting the requirement that only original petition signatures can be submitted for verification. In Florida, candidate petitions are one-signature forms. Presumably this means that candidates can submit photocopies. The rule change does not appear to allow electronic signatures, although this is not clear.
Hacks can NOT get fee donations from DNC/RNC tyrants ???
How many States have the ONE person nom pet forms ???
Should be ALL – in State consts.
I would expect that image of original signature includes photocopy, fax or a photo with ones cell phone. The removal of “ink” befor signature implies that using a stylus or finger on ones cell phone is fine. They mention matching signatures to the registration data, so stylus sigs may not be verified. In PA many registration data sigs come from the DMV which uses a stylus and pad to sign. This has caused many petition form signatures to be rejected for not matching.
code prompt – code reply – code final ???
NO codes for pre-skoool morons.
Very few candidates in Florida utilize the petition process in Florida to get on the ballot. Almost all of them pay the filing fee, because the filing fee is actually easier, and cheaper (than if they hired paid petitioners), than doing the petitions.
I suppose a candidate could argue that they, and/or they and their unpaid volunteers would gather all of the signatures for free, but this rarely happens in Florida. Gathering the necessary signatures is a lot of work, and even if done on an unpaid basis, it is still a big sacrifice in time and labor.