Petition Filings

An act of the General Assembly can be placed on the 2010 General Election ballot by the submission of petitions containing at least 53,650 signatures of Maryland registered voters. The first one-third of the signatures must be submitted to the Secretary of State by midnight on May 31st and the remaining signatures submitted by midnight on June 30th. The names on the petition will be validated by the local boards of elections within 20 calendar days of the submission deadlines. The results of the on-going validation will be posted below and updated daily.

2008 New Party Petition Filings

On Monday, August 4, 2008, two groups submitted petitions to form New Political Parties in Maryland - the Constitution Party and the Independent Party. The results of the petition verification are available. The petition verification process was completed by August 25, 2008.

Additional Information

Maryland law grants the citizens of Maryland certain petition rights. These rights include:

• the ability to bring an Act of the General Assembly to a referendum vote;
• the ability to establish new political parties; and,
• the ability to nominate unaffiliated candidates to the ballot.

From this site you can print the official petition signature gathering forms as well as other documents required to complete a petition. To assist you through the petition process, we offer three sections of questions and answers: Petition Signature Gathering, Petition Verification, and Petition Fund and Campaign Finance Reporting Requirements.

For more information on petitions, please see the Code for Maryland Regulations (COMAR).