Candidates for County Commission gathering voter petitions

Petitions. Everybody wants you to sign one this time of year and Historic City News has learned that there is a good reason for it. If a candidate for countywide office can’t gather signatures from 1% of the registered voters, the candidate is looking at paying a healthy fee to have their name appear on the ballot.

Historic City News reached out to Kim Kendall, a Republican candidate for District 2 on the St Johns County Commission, who told local reporters that she was driven to get that piece of housekeeping out of the way before she gets distracted with other critical parts of her campaign.

“County Commission candidates must pay a filing fee of nearly $4,000 or collect 1,529 verified petitions to have their name placed on the ballot,” Kendall said. “As of March 31, 2014, my campaign has turned in 1750 petitions to the St. Johns County Supervisor of Elections for verification.”

According to Supervisor of Elections, Vicky Oakes, it is not unusual to find that as many as 10% – 15% of the petitions turned in can not be verified; usually because the voter didn’t complete the form correctly, forgot to sign it, or forgot to put the date in the proper place. Oakes encourages candidates to collect about 20% more signed petitions than they will need to qualify.

Kendall only announced her candidacy less than two months ago. We asked how she was able to reach her petition goal so quickly and she gave full credit to each of her 75-member campaign team. “I could not have accomplished this result by myself; our team is very motivated, and we have met voters who have been very willing to sign these petitions,” Kendall said. “It is all very exciting and humbling.”

August 26th is the Republican Primary for the Commission race, and Team Kendall is well on its way to completing the work that needs to be done.

For more information on Kim J. Kendall’s campaign, visit www.VoteKimKendall.com