Running for Alder, School Board, Municipal Court Judge or Mayor

Welcome to the City of Green Bay’s page for local candidates. The City of Green Bay’s Clerk’s office reviews, retains, posts and manages documentation and ballot access for:  Alder, Green Bay Area Public School Trustee (Board Member), Municipal Court Judge and Mayor of Green Bay.

Candidates for county offices (e.g., Supervisor, Clerk, Clerk of Courts) please visit Brown County’s page.  Candidates for statewide office (e.g., Assembly Representative, Wisconsin Senate) please visit the state’s page.

Upcoming Elections

There will be four elections in 2022. The February 15^th is the Spring Primary and April 5^th is the Spring General which will decide Alders, some School Board Members and Municipal Court Judge.  

As a candidate, you are responsible for understanding all election and campaign finance requirements. You may consult the State of Wisconsin Ethics Commission, the Wisconsin Elections Commission or your own private attorney. Information the Clerk’s office provides to all candidates, treasurers, committees and the like, may not be interpreted as legal advice or a release from your responsibility to submit your paperwork on time and to comply with Wisconsin Elections law. 

Important Dates

Candidate Forms—Getting on the Ballot

All persons who are either currently in office or running for office as a new candidate must file the following forms, in the Clerk’s office by January 3, 2023, 5:00 pm.

• Campaign Registration Statement 
• Declaration of Candidacy (must be notarized or signed, Clerk’s office can do this)
• Declaration of Candidacy--School Board (must be notarized or signed, Clerk's office can do this)
• Nomination papers (can’t circulate until after December 1, 2022)
  
  

Campaign Registration Statement 

The Registration Statement informs the public about your address, contact information, treasurer’s name and contact information, your depository institution and if your campaign will exceed $2500 in revenue and/or expenditures. New candidates should file a Registration Statement as soon as your intent to seek elected office is known and before you collect contributions. Current office holders must file an amended Registration Statement indicating the office and election dates (primary and general). The candidate and the Treasurer (if a Treasurer has been appointed) must sign the Registration Statement.  Please check contribution limits.

Declaration of Candidacy

The Declaration informs the public about your name, your candidacy for a specific office and residency. This form is notarized or signed by the Clerk.  A candidate may use their full legal name, or any combination of first name, middle name, initials, or nickname with last name. Do not use titles (Dr., Ph.D., Mrs., etc.) or abbreviations. 

Nicknames with an apparent electoral purpose such as, “Lower Taxes,” or “Clean Energy” are not permitted. Voters are looking for a candidate with a legal name. 

A candidate may use his/her/their nickname, if that is how you refer to yourself or how you’re commonly known: Mel for Melanie; Mo for Mohammed; Jim for James. Don’t use your nickname in quotations, such as Melanie “Mel” Faustus; instead write Mel Faustus.

Nomination Papers

Candidates may begin circulating nomination papers on December 1, 2022. These are due to the Clerk’s office on January 3, 2023, at 5:00 pm. Please refer to the table below for the number of signatures required to gain ballot access.

Candidates are responsible for reviewing signatures before submitting them to the Clerk’s office. All electors signing your nomination papers must live within the district in which you are running. Because the City has redistricted, please consult the above link for the newly formed aldermanic districts. Those who sign need not be registered voters, but must be eligible to vote (over 18, U.S. citizen, resident of the district for at least 28 days, not a felon, etc.) It is to your advantage to check that the addresses on your nomination papers are from the district you are running to represent. Signatures from electors outside the district will not be counted.

Signers must give their complete home address which includes the house number, street name and municipality. Post Office Boxes are not permissible addresses for nomination papers. The address must include the municipality of residence. Signers must also include their signature and the date they signed the papers. For the signature to be valid, the signer must legibly print their name in the space next to their signature.

Those who circulate the papers for nomination—circulators--don’t have to live in the district. They must be a U.S. citizen, over 18 and not otherwise disqualified as an elector in the State of Wisconsin. Circulators then certify, sign and date, the nomination paper(s) after they obtain the last signature on the page.

What you can expect from the Clerk’s Office

The Clerk’s Office will give candidates a receipt for your nomination papers. On that receipt we’ll note the day and time you submit the papers, the number of pages and number of signatures. We will then review the signatures for sufficiency and notify you of any insufficiencies. The benefit of submitting your nomination papers well before January 3, 2023 is the Clerk’s office can verify the validity of your acquired signatures ahead of the deadline.

Once the Clerk has verified all candidates' paperwork, we’ll conduct a lottery to determine ballot order.  This lottery will be noticed on the city's calendar page.

Candidates who submit their papers after January 3, 2023, 5:00 pm or who fail to acquire the appropriate minimum number of valid signatures will not gain ballot access.

The Clerk will notify you of upcoming campaign finance deadlines, via email. Please be sure to provide an updated, frequently visited email address for those purposes.

Candidates who do not win their offices must continue to file finance statements until they terminate their accounts. Office holders must continue to file finance statements and may not terminate until they are out of office, either by choice or by an election.

The Clerk also posts recent campaign finance statements on the City of Green Bay website.

Obtaining a Voter List

Please visit Badger Voters to pay for and obtain a voter list for the purposes of campaigning door-to-door or mailing literature.

Notification of Non-Candidacy

Incumbents who will not seek re-election must file a Notification of Non-Candidacy by noon on December 23, 2022, noon. If the incumbent has a change of mind after filing the Notification of Non-Candidacy, they can run for re-election by filing the appropriate ballot access papers by January 3, 2023.  See the information above for all necessary paperwork.

Write-In Candidates

If you’d like to seek elected office as a write-in candidate, please follow these steps:

1. Download your Campaign Registration Statement (see links above)
2. File the Campaign Registration Statement with the City Clerk as soon as you decide to become a write-in candidate.  Write-in votes are counted for candidates who file paperwork by Noon, Friday February 17, 2023 (Spring Primary), and for the General Election by Noon, Friday, March 31, 2023.
3. Educate voters to write-in your name in the write-in portion of the ballot, for your chosen elected office

Other Campaign Finance Forms

Please refer to this list of campaign finance forms.  It’s the candidate’s responsibility to know which forms to file and to submit them to the Clerk’s office before the deadlines.  More information can be found at the Ethics website.

Helpful Resources

• General Guide
• Lifecycle of a local candidate PowerPoint
• Video and Power Point to help local candidates understand campaign finance reporting
• Video explaining the Duties for local candidates