The deadline to qualify as a candidate in the November general election is June 20, less than two weeks away, and Mathews County Voter Registrar Carla Faulkner urges candidates to turn in their packets as soon as possible to ensure that all petitions are processed and to give them time to collect more signatures, if needed.

One issue that candidates run into, said Faulkner, is that their petitions aren’t filled out correctly. In order for the pages of signatures to count, each petition page must be completely filled out, signed by the circulator who witnessed the signatures, and notarized.

Once a voter petition is turned in to the registrar’s office, every signature on the petition is verified against the official voter registration roll, said assistant registrar Robyn Beasley. If a name can’t be read because of the handwriting or if there is some other problem with signatures, the candidate may have to seek additional signatures before he/she can be qualified.

The two most c...