Candidates can now file for 2020 offices

Candidates seeking public office this year may now begin filing their declarations of candidacy for the 2020 primary election.

The filing period opened Jan. 8; it will close at noon Friday, Feb. 7 for candidates seeking a major political party’s nomination, or at noon Tuesday, June 30 for independent or minor party candidates. Write-in candidates have until noon Monday, July 6 to file their declarations of intent.

Local offices on ballots this year and people who have filed to seek those offices as of Jan. 13 are:

• County recorder: (R) Mary E. Smith
• County treasurer: (R) Andrea A. Bond, (R) Carlos Lopez
• County surveyor
• County commissioner District 1 (Hamblen Township): (R) Blake Wolpert
• County commissioner District 3 (Van Buren Township and Washington Township voting precincts 1-3): (R) Jerry Lee Pittman
• County council at-large (three seats)
• School board District 2 (Jackson Township and Washington Township voting precinct 4)
• School board District 3 (Van Buren Township and Washington Township voting precincts 1-3)
• Republican precinct committeemen (one from each voting precinct in each township): Cindy Rose Wolpert (Hamblen 1), Ben Phillips (Van Buren)
• Republican state convention delegates: Ben Phillips, Cindy Rose Wolpert
• Democrat state convention delegates

State and national offices on ballots this year are:

• President of the United States
• U.S. representative Dist. 9
• Indiana governor
• Indiana attorney general
• State senator Dist. 44
• State representative Dist. 65

Candidates have to live in the district they are representing.

Contact the Brown County Clerk’s office, on the first floor of the Brown County Courthouse, for more information. Forms and information also can be found at in.gov/sos/elections/2395.htm.

Everyone: Check your voter registration

The deadline for residents to register to vote in Brown County in the May 5 primary election is midnight Monday, April 6. You may register at the county clerk’s office, at Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles offices, or at indianavoters.com.

Local election officials stress that it is important for all residents to check their voter registration status. A series of statewide mailings went out last year in an effort to “clean up” voter lists of people who were deceased or no longer lived in their listed county. If a second postcard was returned “undeliverable” to the state voter registration office or if there was no forwarding address, it is possible that that voter was put on the “inactive” voter list.

The Brown County Election Board plans to publish a list of “inactive” voters within the next month or so so that people can take steps to make themselves “active” if they were made “inactive” by mistake.