City of Frederick, MD Change of Election Date Update

George Wenschhof

So far, the City of Frederick elected officials have not acted on my proposal to change the election date from the current off-year election date to coincide with the presidential election.

As I pointed out in previous columns (all of which can be accessed by clicking on their title located in the right hand margin of our Home Page) this change would more than double the anemic 30% voter turnout in the general election.

An added potential plus is a cost savings for the city by piggybacking on the presidential election cycle. Also, public schools would be able to be used for the election. The local schools informed the city they would not be available for polling locations for the election this year.

Instead of looking to ways to make this work, delays have occurred and potential problems highlighted, including the current early primary date the state of Maryland has in the presidential election which some felt would not work well in the city election.

One of the solutions I proposed to that issue was to move the city primary date from mid September to early June after the schools had closed so that they may be used for polling locations. I agree, we do not want to have the voters going to separate polling locations from the primary and the general election as that would be confusing.

An even better solution to this perceived problem with a split primary is to work with the state legislature to move the presidential primary date back to May which it was during the 1970's and 1980's. The push to move Maryland's primary to an earlier date was an attempt by the general assembly to make the state's ten electoral votes more relevant.

Throughout the 1990's and up to 2008, the Maryland presidential primary was held in early March and then last year moved to February 12. These moves did not impact on the relevancy of the ten electoral votes held by Maryland. There are a total of 538 electoral votes and 270 are needed for a candidate to win the presidency.

The month of May would be a better date for Maryland also due to the snowy and inclement weather in February and early March. This would also work well with the City of Frederick election as presently the general election is held only seven weeks after the late primary on September 15. Seven weeks hardly allows the candidates time to inform the voters the differences they have with their opponents.

The City of Frederick election would then be able to dovetail with the presidential election and would utilize the same polling locations.

Meanwhile, the City of Hagerstown, Maryland City Council, who recently held their municipal election, voted 5-0 to move their election to coincide with the presidential election. This was without mention of a need for a split primary and obviously would change their current primary and general election dates. The Hagerstown Herald-Mail has more here.

Stay Tuned....

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