If you’re thinking about elections right now, you may still have the Massie/Gallrien primary on your mind, or perhaps the judges/executive results in the Boone and Campbell county primaries.
Even though it feels like the election JUST ended, it’s already time to start preparing for November.
If you want to file to run as a candidate for office in a nonpartisan or a race that isn’t eligible for a primary in November, the deadline to register with the Secretary of State is next week. The filing deadline for races eligible for primaries, namely the state and county-level (and a handful of municipal races), passed in April. The only way to run for election in those races is to run as a write-in candidate, but that means your name won’t appear on the November ballot. You can see a list of races in the region eligible for primaries here.
Candidates in Kentucky are required to file with the Kentucky Registration of Election Finance to track their fundraising and spending. But a candidate isn’t official until they’ve registered with the Secretary of State.
For the Nov. 3 General Election, that deadline is June 2 at 4 p.m.
Click here to learn more about how to become a candidate, download the required forms and complete your filing if you’d like to run in November.
Here are a few other upcoming dates to remember, or you can bookmark this timeline so you can check back as the dates approach.
Aug. 24: Write-in candidate filing deadline. Write-in candidates must file for election, even though voters will have to write the candidates’ names on the ballot; voters can’t just write whomever they want.
Sept. 19: Online mail-in absentee request portal opens. Portal closes Oct. 20 at midnight. Once the portal opens, it can be found at this link.
Oct. 5: Last day to register to vote. Register or check your registration status here.
If you’re someone who needs reminders or likes to stay up to date but has a busy life: Consider subscribing to our Election Alerts newsletter. For now, you’ll get emails periodically when a big date is coming up or if there’s a breaking news election story with wide interest. As we get closer to the General Election, we’ll bring it back every week with the latest news, reminders and updates.
This story has been updated.