Filing periods for elected offices opening Feb. 27, March 2

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Interested in running for elected office? Candidate filing periods to get on the ballot in the Nov. 3 general election open up next week or the week after, depending on the office.

Here are the details, according to information from the Floyd County Auditor’s Office and the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office:

In Floyd County, the offices of county sheriff, currently held by Jeff Crooks; county auditor, currently held by Gloria Carr; and one Board of Supervisors seat, currently held by Linda Tjaden; are up for election. Each of these offices is elected for a four-year term.

The filing period for county candidates who run as a member of a political party and will be part of their June 2 party primaries begins Monday, March 2, and runs until 5 p.m. Wednesday, March 25.

In the 2016 election, Tjaden ran as a Republican. She has announced she will seek re-election.

Republican candidates need 68 valid signatures and Democratic candidates need 57 valid signatures to be included in the primary election for Floyd County office. Those numbers are based on a percentage of registered voters in the county as of July 1 last year.

Nomination papers must be turned in to the Floyd County Auditor’s Office by the appropriate deadline.

The filing period for county office candidates who choose not to run as a party candidate and are nominated by petition begins Monday, March 2, and runs until 5 p.m. Friday, March 20.

In 2016 Carr and Crooks ran as no party, nominated by petition. It requires 110 valid signatures this year to be included on the general election ballot by petition.

New this year, voters will also elect seven members of the Floyd County Medical Center Board of Trustees, after voters approved changing the organizational charter of the county hospital in last year’s election so that the hospital can now levy property taxes to help support itself.

Seven trustees were appointed to the new board by the county supervisors to run things in this first year, and all seven positions are up for election in November. At least one of the current trustees has said she will not seek re-election.

Hospital trustee positions are for four-year terms, but after this first election some of the trustees will have four-year terms and some will have two-year terms, decided by chance after the election, so that from then on only about half of the board is up for election every two years.

Filing to be on the ballot for hospital trustee positions opens Monday, March 2, and ends at 5 p.m. Friday, March 20. The trustee positions are non-partisan and require 50 signatures to be on the ballot.

Also available at the county level are positions for township officials and soil and water conservation board, with filing open from March 2 to March 20, and county agricultural extension, starting anytime and with a deadline of Aug. 26 at 5 p.m.

At the state level, all Iowa House of Representatives seats are up for election, including the District 52 seat currently held by Todd Prichard, D-Charles City, who is also currently House minority leader. House seats are for two-year terms.

All even-numbered state Senate seats are up for election this year, including Senate District 26, currently held by Waylon Brown, R-St. Ansgar. State senators serve four-year terms.

The filing period for state offices is Monday, Feb. 24, until 5 p.m. on Friday, March 13, and nomination papers must be returned to the Iowa Secretary of State office by the filing deadline.

Anyone with election or candidate questions can call the Floyd County Auditor’s Office at 641-257-6131. In Iowa, the county auditor is also commissioner of elections for his or her county.