Getting on the Ballot
You have to be on the ballot to win! Contact the Berks County Democratic Committee Chair as soon as you know you plan to run for office. They will help you define your campaign ‘universe,’ and professionally guide you through the process of getting on the Primary ballot, answer all your questions, and help you avoid common mistakes.
If you are running for a statewide or national office, our team will also put you in contact with the appropriate Democratic offices, PA House Democratic Campaign Committee or PA Senate Democratic Campaign Committee.
Please note: there are there are two elections every year; the primary in May and general election in November.
Petitions
Getting your name on the ballot involves the circulation of petitions. The number of signatures required varies from 10 to 2500, depending on the office you are seeking. We encourage you gather more signatures than are required to cover challenges. A challenge is when an opponent, whether a Democrat in the primary or someone from another party in the general, questions the validity of your petition signatures. If any signatures look improper, they can be thrown out. So if you needed 10, collect exactly 10 and one signature is found to not be legit, the entire petition gets tossed. Then you would have to run a “write -in” campaign which makes it more difficult to get your name on the ballot.
The best time to circulate your petition is evenings and weekends when people are home. The team carrying petitions for you called are circulators and must be registered as PA Democrats . There’s a whole set of rules that go along with collecting signatures but the good news is that we offer training classes.
Cross-filing
We recommend that candidates running for School Board and Magisterial District Justice positions cross-file. This means you will circulate both Democratic and Republican petitions to get on the ballot under each party.
To get your petition:
First, complete the candidate petition and affidavit found at the Berks Election Services website, Office of Election Services, under the ‘Running for Office Resources’ tab.
You will also need to complete a State Ethics Commission Statement of Financial Interests Form, which can also be found at the Berks Election Services website.
Great! You got yourself on the ballot now what? You will need to set up your campaign team and start raising money. Click these links for more information about Setting Up Your Campaign and Campaign Finance Basics.