Filing Deadline Approaches for Kentucky Independent Candidates

Independents who want to run for office in Kentucky this November have until four o’clock tomorrow afternoon to file candidacy papers with the Secretary of State’s office. The filing deadline also applies to those running for non-partisan judicial seats.Secretary of State Trey Grayson says there’s a simple reason that independents have a different deadline than the major party candidates."Constitutionally, as well as just out of a sense of fairness, we can’t require candidates who wouldn’t appear on a primary ballot to file that early in the year, which is the end of January for a normal deadline," says Grayson, "so we have a traditional August deadline for folks who do not run in party primaries or in other primaries, such as the judicial primaries."Grayson says his office may see more activity on this year’s deadline than in the past, because there are a higher number of judicial races on the ballot. That’s because a lot of judges retired this summer to take advantage of better retirement benefits.