Request By:
Mr. Thomas F. Hardesty
Attorney at Law
101 Masonic Building
227 St. Ann Street
Owensboro, Kentucky 42301
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of July 27 in which you request an opinion concerning the following:
"1. Can a person legally sign a petition for nomination for a candidate for the Office of District Judge and then later become a competing candidate for the same office?
If you are of the opinion that there is no legal prohibition against the above, then please answer the following:
"2. (a) Can a person ethically sign a petition for nomination for a candidate for the office of District Judge and then later become a competing candidate for the same office?
(b) What is the purpose of the requirement that the petition for nomination be signed by two registered voters? "
Our response to your initial question would be in the affirmative. KRS 118A.060(3) details the petition requirements for judicial candidates. You will note that under this subsection the petition is required to be signed by not less than two registered voters from the district or circuit from which the candidate seeks nomination. Further, the petition shall be in the form prescribed by the State Board of Elections. There is nothing in the referred to statute or the prescribed form that would prohibit a person's signing the petition of a candidate for District Judge where at the same time he himself becomes a candidate for the same office. The petition form prescribed by the State Board does require an affidavit to be signed by the two registered voters but, as indicated above, there is no restriction in the form or affidavit other than the fact that the persons executing the affidavit declare that they are registered voters and that the candidate is seeking the office in question. See OAG 77-159.
With respect to your second question, the opinions of this office are confined to interpreting the statutes and not their ethical or moral implications, nor the legislative purpose behind such enactment. As a consequence, we cannot respond to your second question.