By Adam Pagnucco.
My activism in Montgomery County and Maryland politics dates to the 2006 primary. In that election, 87% of votes in MoCo were cast on election day, 8% of votes were cast by provisional ballot and 5% of votes were cast through mail. Fast forward to this year’s primary, in which 47% of MoCo votes were cast through mail, 38% were cast on election day, 12% were cast through early vote and 4% were cast by provisional ballot. Here is the reality of today:
Mail now rivals and often exceeds election day as the most common voting mode.
In this year’s general election, local boards of election began sending mail ballots to voters who applied for them on September 21. As of last night, the Montgomery County Board of Elections had sent mail ballots to 158,092 voters and had received 38,864 back from them. That compares to MoCo’s total general election turnout of 537,935 in 2020.
How many more ballots have been mailed by voters but have not yet been received by the board?
Well-financed campaigns have taken account of this. Candidates for Congress – and the various interest groups playing in those races – have been on TV, on digital screens and in mailboxes for a while now. But what of the school board candidates and the advocates for and against term limits for the county executive?
I have seen little measurable campaigning from them so far. Also, I have not seen any Democratic sample ballots, which include opposition to term limits, appear in any mailboxes. And there have been no positions taken by the Washington Post editorial board on either school board or term limits. Compare that to the four-front war over ballot questions in 2020.
Voters are interested in the election and they are coming to this site. Google clicks on Montgomery Perspective are way up. Aside from the usual search terms that bring visitors here (like this site’s name and my name), here are the leading Google search terms that have resulted in clicks on Montgomery Perspective in the last month:
Shebra Evans
Shebra Evans Board of Education
Shebra Evans vs Laura Stewart
Laura Stewart Board of Education
Larry Hogan
Brenda Diaz vs Natalie Zimmerman
Lynne Harris Rita Montoya
Montgomery County Executive term limits
Alsobrooks vs Hogan
Montgomery County Board of Education endorsements
Anyone looking to communicate with the public in these down-ballot races is running out of time to do so. It could be simply a lack of money. Ballot issue committees are required to file campaign finance reports by October 11 and all committees are due by October 25, so we will soon find out about that. But whatever the reason, voters are voting right now and hearing little or nothing from the candidates, the ballot issue committees and other interested groups in the school board and term limits contests.
Tick tock.