Update, July 30:

Stephanie Ong Stillman, the campaign manager for Rebecca Prozan, who is running for District 8 Supervisor, pointed out that Prozan was the first district candidate to reach 1,000 signatures and her finaly tally far exceeded the published number because "the Department of Elections stops verifying signatures once you have reached the 1,000 valid signatures threshold."

Stillman wrote: "We were the first campaign to actually qualify of any Supervisorial races.   Once a campaign qualifies, the Department of Elections stops counting the signatures even if campaigns continue to turn in signatures.

"In fact, our campaign turned in a total of 3100 signatures on July 22, the day of the signatures deadline... Rebecca Prozan's campaign turned in the most signatures of any Supervisorial candidate and was the FIRST to qualify."

So that clears some things up, and reaffirms that Prozan is one of the frontrunners in District 8.

Here’s something for San Francisco’s political junkies to chew on:

Political candidates in the city can reduce the cost of filing to run by submitting signatures. Each valid signature is worth 50 cents — that means, for example, that for a supervisor who obtains 1,000 autographs, the $500 filing fee is completely waived.

On Tuesday, the Elections Commission released the number of signatures each local candidate submitted for the upcoming November election.

“The purpose is for supervisors to be able to defray or nullify the filing fee costs,” says John Arntz, the city's elections director.

There’s more to it than that. Every election cycle, the political-tea-leaves-reading class likes to peek at the signatures as a rough measure of the relative strengths of the campaigns. San Francisco supervisors are elected on a district-by-district basis, so candidates — even those catering to narrow constituencies — can win with as few as several thousand votes. In that context, getting a thousand signatures by July is nothing to sniff at.

The races in Districts 6 and 8 look particularly tight. In District 6, Jane Kim, the president of the San Francisco Unified School District board who built a formidable citywide organization during her school board race, led all supervisorial candidates with 1,281 signatures. Her opponent, Debra Walker, a longtime Democratic force, followed her closely with 1,041. Theresa Sparks and Jim Meko, two other leading contenders for Chris Daly’s vacated seat, apparently didn’t make much of an effort; both submitted about two dozen signatures.

There is also a heated battle for the District 8 seat, left open by termed-out Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who is running for mayor.

Scott Wiener, a relatively moderate candidate who handily won a recent contest for a spot in the local Democratic Party, turned in 1,264 signatures. Rebecca Prozan, an attorney, reported 1,056 names, and Rafael Mandelman, a darling of the city’s progressives, reported 1,011.

Aside from the courtroom saga unfolding in District 2, where Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier is hoping to run for re-election, District 6 and 8 are the local races to watch.

Click here to see the full signatures form from the Elections Commission.