May 19, 2008
George Bennett, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
PalmBeachPost.com

State Rep. Carl Domino, R-Jupiter, and two other state House candidates are waiting to see whether the petitions they submitted to the Palm Beach County elections office before a noon deadline today are good enough to qualify them for the ballot without paying filing fees.

Eight other local candidates — including two Democrats running for Domino’s seat — have turned in enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.

An elections staffer said she did not know when the office would finish examining the stacks of petitions turned in this morning by Domino, state House District 78 Democratic candidate Kevin Rader and House District 88 Democratic candidate Mark Pafford.

State and county candidates can get a spot on the ballot by paying a filing fee or by turning in signatures from 1 percent of the voters in the district where they are running for office.
In Domino’s north-county District 83, Democrats Bryan Miller and Rick Ford both met the 1,125-signature requirement. Ford, who was within 100 signatures of the mark on Friday, turned in enough petitions this morning to meet the goal.

Candidates who don’t meet the signature requirement can pay a fee to get on the ballot between June 16 and June 20. For state House and Senate seats, the fee is $1,915.92.
State Sen. Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, won’t have to pay the fee after meeting the 2,802-signature requirement for his Palm Beach-Broward Senate district.

State Rep. Adam Hasner, R-Delray Beach, also qualified for the ballot by petition.

County Commissioners Burt Aaronson and Karen Marcus submitted enough signatures to qualify without paying a $5,519.70 commission filing fee.

Marcus’s Republican primary challenger, John Jamason, also turned in the 1,261 signatures needed to qualify by petition. In commission District 3, Democrat Carl McKoy made the ballot by turning in at least 1,120 signatures.