Official acceptance of candidacy

23 August 2003

It’s been a week since I updated my blog on my candidacy. Ginna and I went to Austin last Thursday (17 August) so that I could file my petitions with the Secretary of State first thing on Friday morning. I received more notarized signature pages on Wednesday and Thursday from the following:

Jamie Seal 13
Marsha Harper 20
Karen Hendrick 6
Krystal Bryant 5
Hester Williams 5

Again, many thanks. I obtained some extra signatures during the day on Wednesday and in the parking lot after Wednesday evening Bible class. I totaled them up Wednesday evening and had less than 600, but Thursday afternoon the total was 601. I told Ginna that I was comfortable traveling to Austin with over 600 signatures in hand, so we “made reservations” with her mother (Joyce Gustafson) and decided to drive to Austin so that I could file first thing on Friday morning. We arrived in Austin late Thursday evening and drove by the Jefferson Rusk Building so that I would know where to go. We got to Joyce’s house and I read through the signatures. I became concerned since several of the signatures had some missing information (incomplete address or missing zip code) and some were illegible. We got out the Abilene phone book and filled in the missing information as best we could. It was then that I noticed that my mother had signed twice (the petition that I had and the petition that my sister, Marla, was circulating). I shed a tear and started to mark through one of the signatures. Mom has become forgetful, and would not have done this two years ago. But I decided that if anyone should be allowed to sign twice it should be a mother.

I received a call from the Texas office of Secretary of State on Tuesday morning. I was already at work, but the voice message stated that “enough signatures were verified and your petition for candidacy has been approved”. Of course, I was elated but the physicist in me required me to call back to see how many of the 601 signatures were accepted. It was 549 of the 601 (more than 90% valid!).

So my (write-in) candidacy is now officially recognized by the state of Texas. I am encouraged.