You may have been asked to sign a petition for a candidate recently – maybe a would-be judge, or a candidate for City Controller or District Attorney. And you may be wondering what it is all about.
Petitions are used by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to vet candidates for the election ballot. If you want to run for office, you have to get a certain number of signatures on your petitions. To run for judge in Common Pleas or Municipal Court, for example, the number of signatures necessary is 1,000. All of these signatures must be collected within the signature window, which this year runs from February 18, 2025 to March 11, 2025
Candidates often pay people to obtain signatures for them (that’s legal.) Signature gatherers go door to door, or stand in high-traffic areas and ask passers-by to sign if they are of the correct party. Near the end of the petitioning period, there will be a scramble to file all the signatures in Harrisburg (for judicial candidates) or City Hall in Philadelphia (for local candidates.)
If a candidate has too few signatures, or signatures appear to be invalid for any reason (forgery, portions missing, etc.) then opponents may challenge the validity of some or all of the signatures that have been gathered for a candidate. If you are running for office, and you come up short after a challenge, you get knocked off the ballot.
We will know in a few weeks who will be on the ballot for the May 20, 2025 Primary. Stay tuned!