Krisiti Reid Willis, Chief of the Bureau of Election Records announced emergency rules allowing an exemption for the requirements of original signatures on petitions and candidates forms to minimize person to person contact.
Candidates running for office are required to collect a certain number of signed petitions in order to get on the ballot come Election Day. The deadline for turning in the petitions is later this month. The deadline for federal office was March 23rd. Covid-19 related restrictions put in place by local and state officials have made it all but impossible to get original signatures on petitions, as it requires traditionally going to large events or gathering, or door to door.
These new rules allow for candidates to email or make their petitions available digitally, and registered voters can sign them and email them back to the candidate without a face-to-face interaction.
If a candidate cannot collect the required number of petitions for their office, then they have to option to pay a filing fee instead. For US Congress, for example, the required number of petitions is 5,466 or pay a fee of $10,440.
