How to Run for Office
Becoming a Candidate
You must file your Appointment of Campaign Treasurer and Designation of Depositor (form DS-DE 9) with our office before you are allowed to open a campaign account and accept any money or spend any money on behalf of your campaign. This form states which office you are running for, which bank you designate for your campaign account, and who is serving as your campaign treasurer. This form may be filed at any time of the year. Once you have filed this form, you are a candidate and should follow Chapter 106 of the Election Code, and may open a campaign bank account and start to accept campaign contributions and make expenditures.
You must file your Statement of Candidate form with our office within 10 days of filing your Appointment of Treasurer and Designation of Depository Form. This form acknowledges that you have been provided with access to Chapter 106 and will be able to run your campaign in accordance with the laws of the State of Florida.
For more information, view the offices up for election and candidate resources.
Next Steps
Once you have filed your Appointment of Treasurer, you will be required to file Campaign Treasurer’s Reports. The Supervisor of Elections will provide you with a list of the report dates and the period covered by the report. You will receive a copy of the electronic filing manual. This electronic filing system is provided, cost-free, to Candidates, Committees, and Parties required to file reports in Bay County. Please contact our office to set an appointment to go over all the filing information. This appointment usually will last two hours.
Florida Law allows that you may qualify for office by paying a qualifying fee or by collecting signed petitions. If collecting signatures, pay the signature verification fee or file your Oath of Undue Burden. Pursuant to S.99.097(4), Florida Statutes, a candidate who has chosen the petition method to qualify must pay in advance the sum of 10 cents for each signature checked to the Supervisor of Elections, unless you has filed an oath of undue burden.
The petition format is prescribed by the Florida Division of Elections and is linked here in PDF (DS-DE 104). If the candidate is running for an office that requires a group or district designation, the petition must indicate that designation, and if it does not, the signatures are not valid. (For example, Bay County Commissioner District 2 or Panama City Commissioner Ward 1.)
If any person is paid to solicit signatures on a petition, an undue burden oath may not subsequently be filed in lieu of paying the fee to have signatures verified for that petition. If an undue burden oath has been filed and payment is subsequently made to any person to solicit signatures on a petition, the undue burden oath is no longer valid and a fee for all signatures previously submitted to the Supervisor of Elections and any that are submitted thereafter shall be paid by the candidate, person, or organization that submitted the undue burden oath. If contributions as defined in s. 106.011 are received, any monetary contributions must first be used to reimburse the Supervisor of Elections for any signature verification fees that were not paid because of the filing of an undue burden oath.
Any registered voter in Bay County may sign your petition. Please note, some municipalities have district-specific requirements. You will need to collect signatures equal to 1% of the registered voters in the last General Election. For county-wide and municipal-level candidates, petition requirements are listed on the snapshot pages above for each office up for election. Petition requirements for other candidates can be found on the Florida Division of Elections’ website at dos.fl.gov. Petitions must be submitted to the Supervisor of Elections no later than noon on the 28th day before the first day of qualifying.
“Qualifying” is the official process of getting your name on the ballot. This occurs during a designated week before the Primary Election. Qualifying dates are listed on the above snapshot pages for each specific office. The Supervisor of Elections has prepared a packet for candidates for Municipal and County offices with the forms you will need to file and the filing dates. These papers must be filed with the Supervisor before noon of the last day of qualifying. Candidates for federal, judicial, state attorney, public defender, statewide, or multi-county office must qualify with the Florida Division of Elections. Please see their website at dos.fl.gov for information.
Chapter 104 of the Florida Statutes governs violations of Florida’s election laws. The Florida Elections Commission is the administrative agency charged with enforcing Chapters 104 and 106 of Florida’s Election Code. Violations of Florida Statutes governing campaigns are subject to penalties ranging from fines and warnings up to removal of the candidate’s name from the ballot, disqualification from taking office, and other criminal penalties.
Request an Appointment
Thank you for your interest in becoming a candidate. In order to expedite the process, please fill out the form below. A candidate specialist will contact you to begin the process of becoming a candidate.
Reminder, you cannot collect petitions or contributions until you have filed to run for office.