The Petition Process

There are two ways to qualify for the ballot. The first is to pay a hefty filing fee. For the Public Defender race, that fee is nearly $10,000. I prefer the petition process. This involves collecting the signatures and voter information of your fellow citizens. I need almost 5,000 petitions from registered voters in DeSoto, Manatee and Sarasota counties in order to qualify. The petitions are due by March 31, 2008. This means we need to collect a thousand a month to be successful. I like the petition process because it gives me a chance to meet voters, explain the Public Defender's Office to them, and ask for their support.
Yesterday Regina and I went to work gathering petitions. We started at the Sarasota Reading Festival. Now we try not to be too aggressive and infringe upon anyone's day, so we mostly looked for people in line, folks sitting down, and friends. It does take a minute or two to complete the petition, and you have to supervise the process in order to ensure that it is filled out properly. Most folks are agreeable, but not all, and we try to be understanding if denied.
After three hours at the Reading Festival it was off to the Blues Festival. For a minute I thought they might not less us bring our clipboards inside but security relented. People were having a good time listening to the music and eating, so we adopted a more passive approach. As it grew dark we put away the petitions and got close to the stage so we could better see and hear the legendary Buddy Guy.
When we counted the petitions up at the end of the day, we had collected around eighty valid signatures. If you see any candidate out with his or her clipboard, please consider taking a moment to help them out. Your signature does not consitute an endorsement or a pledge to vote a certain way. Running for office is a challenge and I'm always willing to sign someone elses' petition, based on my personal knowledge of all the effort involved.