Some Phila. candidates find a warmer way to get petition signatures

Let the petition races begin. Registered voters (and probably any city resident) should expect a knock or two or 10 at their door with campaign volunteers trying to get signatures.

Tuesday marked the first day candidates for local elected office can start circulating nominating petitions to be on the May 19 primary ballot. Mayoral and at-large City Council candidates must have at least 1,000 valid signatures filed by March 10. District Council candidates must have at least 750.

Lynne Abraham, a mayoral candidate and former district attorney, held a petition kickoff party Tuesday night at Kennedy House, a Center City apartment building.

"In a petition-signature situation like this, friends within the campaign and friends outside the campaign reach out to as many people as possible," Abraham's campaign manager, Stuart Rosenberg, said through a spokeswoman. "We're trying to gather as many signatures as possible."

Candidates have been complaining about the difficulty in getting signatures by going door-to-door, so petition parties are becoming a popular way to get a lot of people in one room at a time.

"It's hard to do door-to-door in Center City," said Joe Defelice, the Republican City Committee's executive director. "You can't get into some of the Rittenhouse towers, but people might come to parties."

In addition, Defelice said, signing petitions indoors with booze and food is much more appealing than outside.

"You want to make it fun," he said. "Going out in the cold isn't so fun."

The Republicans will have a petition party Thursday at the Racquet Club of Philadelphia.

Others are taking a different approach. Councilman James Kenney, who is running for mayor, is leaving the petition work to his field team.

"The petitions we're counting on to come back have already gone out to the people who will circulate them," Kenney spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said. "We're not making a big public deal of petitions."

This election season, many jobs are up for grabs, including mayor, all 17 City Council seats, three Municipal Court judgeships, and 12 judgeships on Common Pleas Court.

Voters are limited in the number of signatures they can provide: one for mayor, five for at-large City Council candidates, and one for a Council district representative.

Independent candidates can start circulating petitions March 11, the first day for filing challenges to Democratic and Republican candidates' petitions.

Once the petitions have been certified and the candidates have survived any challenges, their name will be printed on the May ballot.

Then the second leg of the race begins: voter turnout.

1,000 Number of signatures needed to get on May 19 ballot for mayor, council at-large, city commissioner, judges, sheriff, register of wills

750 Number of signatures needed to run for Council district seat

1,325 (or 2 percent of the most recent election turnout) Number of signatures to run next fall as an independent candidate for any office

19

Number of days left to gather names

20

Number of days until independents may start circulating petitions

89

Number of days until the primary

50

Number of signatures allowed per petition sheet

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