Some Nov. ballots will have no candidates listed for some offices. Perhaps your name should be there.

The Forest Hills/Van Ness area’s advisory neighborhood commission, ANC 3F, has candidates running for four of the six positions, but no one picked up the paperwork for the other two single-member districts.

So, if you are a registered voter who lives in either ANC 3F02 or 3F06 (and if you’re not sure, you can find out here), you are welcome to run as a write-in candidate.

What’s an ANC? And how do you run as a write-in candidate?

Advisory neighborhood commissioners are nonpartisan elected officials. They serve two-year, unpaid terms as representatives at the neighborhood level. Within each advisory neighborhood commission are single-member districts represented by one commissioner.

Greater Greater Washington hosts “So you (might) want to be an ANC?” training chats every two years. The archived video has all kinds of good advice and insights from people currently serving as commissioners, but to sum up:

ANCs do not make policy or have any legislative power. They represent neighborhoods as they provide oversight, feedback and suggestions on a range of policies and issues including traffic, parking, recreation, street improvements, liquor licenses, zoning, economic development, police protection, sanitation, and the District’s annual budget.

The tools at their disposal include resolutions and testimony before DC government agencies, independent boards, and the council. Many DC agencies are required to notify ANCs of projects and programs in their areas, and are required to give “great weight” to ANC recommendations.

If this sounds like something you could do, all that remains is launching the campaign (in other words, getting the word out to your neighbors in your single-member district) and filing an “Affirmation of Write-In Candidacy” form with the DC Board of Elections.

Some write-in candidates in other ANCs and for other elected offices have filed their affirmations already, but others wait until after the election. The official deadline for affirming write-in candidacy is seven days after Election Day, or Nov. 10.

Voting starts sooner than you might think

And that’s one of the reasons we’re bringing this up now.

Officially, Election Day is Nov. 3, and many people will wait until that day to vote. But registered DC voters also receive ballots in the mail. The ballots will begin to arrive in early October, and Board of Elections drop boxes will accept marked ballots beginning Oct. 9.

That’s why Forest Hills Connection publishes “getting to know you” statements from ANC 3F candidates in late September and early October (some samples are linked here), and we plan to do so again this election cycle.

We’ve been requesting statements from the ANC 3F candidates who qualified for the ballot in single-member district’s 3F01, 3F03, 3F04 and 3F05. We welcome statements from write-in candidates as well.

If you decide to throw your hat in the ring as a write-in, simply send your statement and a headshot (selfies are fine!) to info@foresthillsconnection.com.