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Rules Governing Petitions

Petition forms are available at the Defiance County Board of Elections office between the hours of 8:30 am – 4:30 pm.

Rules Governing Petitions:

1. The “Statement of Candidacy” portion of the petition must be completely filled out and signed by the candidate before being circulated.
2. Signatures must be in ink.
3. Signatures must be personally affixed by registered electors who are qualified to vote on the candidacy. If a signature is difficult to read, the name should be printed immediately underneath.
4. Petitions for a candidate for party nomination must be signed and circulated by qualified electors who are members of the same political party as the candidate. An elector is considered to be a member of a political party if he or she voted in that party’s primary election within the preceding two calendar years, or if he or she did not vote in any other party’s primary election within the preceding two calendar years (R.C. 3513.05)

5.  a.  A candidate may serve as the circulator of his or her own petition although he or she may not sign his or her own candidacy petition as an elector.

b.  A circulator may not sign the same petition paper that he or she is circulating; a circulator may, however, sign a petition paper being circulated for the same candidacy by a different circulator.

6. After circulating the petition, circulators must sign a statement, under penalty of election falsification:

a.   Indicating the number of signatures contained on the petition;

b.  That the circulator witnessed the affixing of each signature on the petition;

c.   That all signers, to the best of the circulator’s belief and knowledge, were qualified to sign;

d.  That each signature is, to the best of the circulator’s knowledge and belief, the signature of the person whose signature it purports to be;

e.  The circulator is a qualified elector of the state.

7. The original petition with the candidate’s original signature must be filed at the same time as all part petitions are filed.
8. When petitions are circulated in a district that contains more than one county, separate petition papers must be circulated in each county containing signatures of electors residing in that county only. (R.C. 3501.38, 3513.05, 3513.07, 3513.261)
9. No petition shall contain more than three times the minimum number of required signatures.