Petitions

Today Linda and I turned in our nominating petitions for Bob Crampsie, who is running for Controller of Carbon County, and for Emmett McCall, who is running for the Recorder of Deeds position.  To get on the primary ballot for county-wide offices in Carbon, you need the signatures of 100 county voters registered in in your party.

This was an especially bad year to gather signatures.  Three different meetings where we had planned to sign people up were cancelled because of the weather.  The roads were often icy, and parking in town was difficult.  When you do find someone home, you have to sit and talk, and that takes time.

We also knew from past experience that you need a voter list when you gather the signatures, since people will say they belong to the right party when they don’t, either because they don’t want to hurt your feelings, or because they truly don’t remember.  

Another problem is that the petitions themselves are poorly designed.  For example, you write the street address and the municipality in which you live.  My street address is Pohopoco.  My post office is Lehighton, but my municipality is Towamensing Township.  

Candidates usually try to send out a small army of signature gatherers to guarantee they reach the threshold with names to spare.  Mr. Crampsie and Mr. McCall are old hands at this; their names will be on the ballot in May.