Ohio and Pennsylvania petitions

Circulating a Pennsylvania Nomination Petition, Feb 16 to Mar 9

To circulate a Pennsylvania nomination petition in 2027, prepare your pages and fill in every heading before the window opens, then collect signatures from Tuesday, February 16 through Tuesday, March 9, 2027 (dates based on state law). Each signer must be a registered and enrolled member of the party named on the petition who lives in the district, and each one signs, prints their name, and writes their registered address and the date. After the last signature on a page, the circulator (the person who collected the signatures) completes and signs the Statement of Circulator on the back, with no notary. The pages are then numbered, bound and filed with your county board of elections by its normal closing hour on March 9, with your candidate's affidavit, any required ethics form and any filing fee.

This post follows those steps in order, drawing on the Pennsylvania Election Code, the Department of State (DOS) petition instructions, and Berks County's 2025 form as an example of a county page. Your own county's packet is the one to follow. For signature numbers, objections and the full calendar, see our guide to Pennsylvania nomination petitions.

Before February 16: prepare your pages

The window is about three weeks, so finish every task that does not involve a signature before it opens.

Get the packet from your county board. DOS instructions call for 8.5 by 11 inch pages printed two-sided, head to head, which the DOS filing guide describes as "like the pages in a book." The guide says pages not printed two-sided will not be accepted. You may copy blank pages, but only as exact copies of the originals.

Fill in the heading on every page. DOS instructs that every blank at the top of side 1 be completed before any signatures are collected. On Berks County's 2025 form, the heading asks for the county and electoral district, the party, your name as you want it on the ballot, your profession, business or occupation, your place of residence, the office and its term, and the year. DOS says your name must appear "exactly as the candidate wants it to be displayed on the ballot," and a nickname is allowed only if it comes from your legal name. DOS also allows you to complete the heading before copying the blank pages, which avoids a copying error on any one page.

Prepare separate pages for each county. Signers who live in different counties must use different pages (section 909). If your district crosses a county line, mark each page with its county and give it to a circulator working there.

If you are cross-filing, keep two sets. School director and magisterial district judge candidates, among others, may seek both major parties' nominations (section 910(f)). Each party's petition is signed only by that party's enrolled members, so keep a clearly marked set of pages for each party.

Line up your circulators. Each must be a qualified elector of Pennsylvania and a registered and enrolled member of the party named on the petition, although magisterial district judge circulators need not be party members (section 909). DOS is not enforcing the in-state residency requirement for out-of-state circulators who complete a Supplemental Statement of Out-of-State Circulator, but they must still belong to the party, and an objector may still raise residency in court. Our general post on recruiting and training petition circulators uses Illinois examples, but its advice on briefing volunteers applies here.

Step 1: Start on February 16

Section 908 says no nomination petition "shall be circulated prior to the thirteenth Tuesday before the primary," and no signature is counted unless it is dated between the thirteenth and tenth Tuesdays before the primary. For the May 18, 2027 primary, that is Tuesday, February 16 through Tuesday, March 9 (based on state law).

Step 2: At the door, confirm the voter can sign

Only registered and enrolled members of the party named on the petition, who are qualified electors of the county and district, may sign (section 908). A circulator cannot check the voter rolls at the door, but asking whether the voter is registered in the party at that address saves lines that would be struck later.

If the voter mentions other candidates, explain one more rule. A voter may sign petitions for only as many candidates for an office as there are seats. If a voter signs for more and the signatures carry the same date, none of them counts once an objection is filed; if the dates differ, they count in date order up to the number of seats (section 977).

Step 3: What each signer writes

The DOS instructions have each signer fill in all four columns on their line:

1. Signature of Elector. "Each signer must personally sign his or her name." No one signs for a spouse or anyone else in the household.
2. Printed Name of Elector. Printed legibly (section 908).
3. Address Where Registered and Enrolled. The address exactly as it appears on the voter's registration. If the district lies entirely within one city, borough or township, the municipality may be left off (section 908).
4. Date of Signing. In words or numbers (section 908), such as "February 16, 2027" or "2/16/27."

We did not find an express ban on electronic signatures in the Election Code, but DOS instructs that each signer personally sign on the paper page. Every signature should be written by the voter, by hand, on the page itself.

Step 4: Keep the page in hand, then complete the Statement of Circulator

By signing the Statement of Circulator, the circulator states that they are a qualified elector of Pennsylvania and an enrolled member of the party, that the signers signed "with full knowledge of the contents of the petition," that their residences are correctly stated, that each signed on the date shown, and that to the best of their knowledge the signers are qualified, enrolled members of the party (section 909). A circulator can only say that truthfully about signatures they saw, so each page stays in the circulator's hands.

Berks County's form says the statement "must be executed after all signatures have been obtained," and DOS gives the same instruction. On the back of the page, the circulator writes the county where the signers live (the signers' county, not the circulator's, according to the DOS filing guide), then signs, prints their name and gives their address.

The statement is made subject to the penalties for unsworn falsification (18 Pa.C.S. 4904); since the 2019 amendments to section 909, there is no notary step. DOS instructions say an out-of-state circulator strikes the part of the statement about being a qualified elector of Pennsylvania, and that a Supplemental Statement for each one is attached to the last page of the candidate's first set of petitions. Ask your county board how it handles these.

Step 5: Plan the three weeks door to door

Door-to-door collection suits a short window, and Beacon is built for it. Before February 16, draw each circulator's turf on the map, inside the district and inside one county, and assign it. Add your contacts, and when a circulator downloads their walk list, the stops are in walking order by distance. Beacon routes circulators door to door and records which doors were visited and the result at each one: contacted, not home, refused, come back later and the other door codes. At each door, the circulator can note "signed" or "not signed" in the door result's Notes field, and turf completion percentages show where to send people in the last week. If a circulator loses signal partway through a shift, the results they enter are queued and sent when the signal returns. The signed paper page remains the only legal record of each signature; Beacon keeps the record of the doors. Every plan includes unlimited canvassers.

Step 6: Assemble and file by March 9

Review every page while there is still time to collect more: complete headings, full lines dated February 16 to March 9, one county per page, and a signed Statement of Circulator on each. Then assemble the filing:

1. Number and bind the pages. Pages are numbered consecutively from one and bound together (section 909); DOS asks that each page be numbered on both sides.
2. Add the candidate's affidavit. It is notarized. DOS notes that if you cannot get a notarization, you may use an Unsworn Statement in Lieu of Notarization under Act 2020-15.
3. Add a copy of your Statement of Financial Interests, if your office requires it. Under the State Ethics Act, candidates for county-level or local office file this form by the petition deadline and attach a copy to the petition, and failing to do so is a "fatal defect" (65 Pa.C.S. 1104(b)). Ask your county board whether your office is covered.
4. Bring the filing fee, if one applies. Many local offices have none. Otherwise, pay by certified check or money order, or in cash at the county board (section 913).

File with your county board of elections by its normal closing hour on Tuesday, March 9, 2027 (section 913, based on state law), and keep the receipt showing the date and time. If you can, file before the last day so there is time to fix a problem. To confirm the minimum for your office, see how many signatures you need to run for office in Pennsylvania.

After you file

Objections to petitions filed with a county board go to the county court of common pleas, within seven days after the last filing day: Tuesday, March 16, 2027 (section 977, based on state law). The last day to withdraw is Wednesday, March 24, 2027 (section 914). Keep copies of everything you filed.

A signature on a nomination petition is not permission to text the signer. If you want to text supporters, use a separate sign-up sheet, never the petition page, that says plainly the person agrees to receive campaign texts and records the date. Only people who agreed that way should receive texts. CampaignCNX+, a separate texting product, sends those texts, and its guide to running for local office in Pennsylvania covers the campaign from filing to November.

Map your turf before February 16

The circulation window is only three weeks long. Beacon puts every circulator's turf on a map and keeps a record of each door's result, with unlimited canvassers on every plan. Start your 14-day trial and have the first turf ready the week before the window opens.