Candidate Removals and Withdrawals
If a candidate has died, announced their withdrawal from the campaign, or has "suspended" their campaign, you will want to run an update on the candidate list. If the candidate is still listed on the official candidate list, you should contact the government's election office to ask what the status will be. If the candidate was currently listed as "running," the candidate should still be listed as "Running" until the official elections office removes them. In some cases, it is too late for a candidate to be removed from the ballot, and a candidate that is deceased, ineligible for office, in jail, or otherwise unwilling to take office will remain on the ballot and sometimes will win. In these cases you will want to add a "special message" to their bio page in admin that explains their situation (with approval from Elections Director). You will also need to check with the elections office to see what the next steps will be in the event that that individual wins the election.
Election authorities often have withdrawal deadlines as part of their election calendar. You should make a note of these dates, and update the candidate list after this date. It is also likely that the Profiles sub department will also find some during their research, confirm this information and update the candidate.
If you mark a candidate as Deceased, by changing the Status, found at the bottom of a candidate's Biography page on Admin then hit Save, a message will show up under the Candidate's picture on our website titled "Deceased". However this will not remove that person from the office or election.
To change their election status, you will need to click on the Election tab for the Candidate. After that by clicking on View Stages and selecting the appropriate election stage, you can now change the election status of the candidate to Deceased. This change will remove the candidate from the election.
It is important to note that once you mark a candidate as Campaign Suspended/Withdrawn/Removed/Deceased, you will not be able to search the candidate through the Office Seeking tab in Admin. You would have to search for the candidate by name and State in Admin.
If a candidate is no longer on the official ballot, you will want to change the election status attached to that particular election stage. Here are the possible statuses you might change them to:
- Campaign Suspended = National Election status for those Presidential candidates who have announced their intention to "suspend" their campaigns, or for other candidates who use this language themselves.
- Withdrawn = when the candidate has filed for the ballot, has otherwise qualified, but has removed himself from the official ballot prior to the election. This should also apply to "announced candidates" who decide ultimately to withdraw their application.
- Removed = when the candidate has filed for the ballot, has been reported as qualified at some point, but an election official, judge, or other governmental entity has removed the candidate from the official ballot prior to the election. This status can also be used if you are unsure why a candidate is no longer listed on the ballot.
- Deceased = A candidate has been removed from the official ballot due to having died prior to the election
- (No Status, Election deleted from the profile if no PCT or important contact logs- see your supervisor if PCT or important contact logs exist) = a potential candidate that never ended up qualifying for the ballot or someone that was added as a candidate by mistake. Do not do this for Presidential candidates without the approval of IT.
