I was recently interested in what it takes to get a name on the ballot for Mayor and more specifically Mayor of Buffalo. After a few emails, here's the response I received.
Under the terms of the City of Buffalo Charter, in order to be eligible to run for Mayor, a person must be a resident of the City of Buffalo for at least one year prior to the date of the election (Charter section 4-6; and Charter section 24-4 listed below) If a person is eligible to run for Mayor under the charter regulations, then the individual must abide by the regulations in New York State Election Law. The Erie County Board of Elections can explain the requirements for each office. However, generally speaking, an individual must be registered to vote in the City of Buffalo. A registered person enrolled with a particular party (Democrat, Republican, Conservative, etc) must obtain designating petitions for that party and have qualified electors of the same party or Commissioners of Deeds, or a Notary Public circulate the petitions on behalf of the individual seeking office as a witness to the signing of the petition. The potential candidate may circulate petitions on his or her own behalf. For a district office like Councilmember, 500 valid signatures must be obtained, for a city wide office like Mayor, 2000 valid signatures must be obtained. A person may not sign any petition for which he or she is the witness. Valid signatures must be collected only during the time period established by the Board of elections, usually a date in the first week of June through a date in the second week of July. If the petitions are circulated correctly and a valid number of qualified signatures are collected and filed with the Board of Elections by the deadline, then the candidate has earned a slot on the ballot. However, if more than one person from the same party collect enough valid signatures to be placed on the ballot, then a Primary Election will be held in September to determine which candidate will represent the particular party in the November General Election. The person receiving the most votes in the September Primary Election will be the party candidate for the November General Election running against candidates from other parties. The primary election is for people of the same party running to become their party's choice as the candidate in the General Election. The General Election is for candidates representing different parties. These are the basic rules for running for office, however, there are several regulations which I have not addressed that cover campaign finances and protocols which you could obtain from the Board of Elections.