Frederick County MD Sheriff to Run Unopposed

George Wenschhof

Incumbent Republican Sheriff Chuck Jenkins will now be the only candidate for Sheriff to appear on the ballot this fall.

Karl Bickel had announced back in April his intent to run as an "Unaffiliated" candidate for Sheriff. Bickel then followed up his announcement by filing a Declaration of Intent to seek nomination by petition.

As I reported back then, in order to appear on the ballot, he needed to obtain signatures from at least one per cent of the registered voters in Frederick County. The signatures would then need to be verified by the Frederick County Board of Elections.

Today, at 5:00 PM ET, the deadline to submit the signatures came and went without Mr. Bickel submitting any signatures to the Board of Elections.

The Elections Director informed me he received a phone message from Mr. Bickel a little after 2:00 PM that he had fallen short and would not be coming to submit signatures for verification today. As of 5:00, the Elections Director was deleting Mr. Bickel from the data base as a potential candidate for Sheriff.

The number of verified signatures needed for Mr. Bickel to have appeared on the ballot was 1,449. Interestingly, I received news from various sources who work in downtown Frederick, that they were approached for signatures for Mr. Bickel today.

The Frederick County Democratic Party did not field a candidate for this position, the Register of Wills position, or the State's Attorney position.

Voters still have the option to "write-in" a candidate in the election. However, no one can remember anyone being elected for a county wide position as a "write-in" candidate.

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