PHOTO: DeKalb County Republican Chairman Scotty Vaughn discusses the guidelines for running on the Republican ballot during the 2018 Election cycle. (Tyler Pruett | Southern Torch)
By Tyler Pruett, Managing Editor
FORT PAYNE, Ala. – (Video at the Bottom) Toward the end of September, the DeKalb County Republican Party’s Executive Committee met to pass the “2018 Primary Resolution,” which lays out the guidelines for local candidates seeking to run in the June primary on Republican Ballot.
The resolution reads, “Each person desiring to be elected as a nominee of the Republican Party for office or to a Republican Party office (County Executive Committee) shall, not earlier than January 8, 2018, and not later than 5:00 pm Central Standard Time on Friday, February 9, 2018, for the June 5, 2018 Primary election file with the Chairman of the DeKalb County Republican Executive Committee, or his or her authorized representative, a Declaration of Candidacy and simultaneously therewith pay to the order of the DeKalb County Republican Party the following qualification fee:
- For public offices - 2% of the beginning annual salary for the office sought and for any unremunerated office, $50.
- For County party offices: $25 (County Executive Committee)”
In other words, the county set the same qualifying dates as the Alabama GOP of January 8, 2018 through Friday, February 9 at 5 pm. Candidates must also pay 2% of the beginning annual salary for paid positions. For example, the average annual salary of an Alabama State Legislature is listed as $44,765.00 per year, which would mean a $895.30 qualification fee. Non-paying positions require a $50 fee, and county party positions $25.
Although candidates have already declared candidacy for the primary, it’s still up to the Executive Committee to approve the candidacies to appear on the Republican ballot, as Chairman Vaughn pointed out:
“The landscape of the county party has changed since I’ve started coming around. The first meeting I came to Especially this election cycle seems different to me, like I mentioned earlier, I feel like we’ve been in full campaign mode for a year, and you can’t vote for anybody right now, you can’t even qualify for anything right now,” said Vaughn.
“We’re so far ahead of the curve on everything, I’ve had several people ask me different things; like people have asked what I’m doing about this or that,” Vaughn stated. “Well there is nothing we can do; anybody can say they are running for anything right now and there is nothing that anybody in this room can actually do, until qualifying.”
“And then for qualifying, there is a process in our by-laws that we are going to follow,” said Vaughn. “And everybody will turn in proper paperwork with their qualifying fees, and we will address any issues that come up at that time.”
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