The Carroll County Board of Commissioners race will proceed without election districts, the county Board of Elections announced.
Acting on advice from the state Board of Elections and the Office of the Attorney General, the Carroll County Board of Elections began accepting candidates Monday for this fall?s election. However, a court challenge could change the race, said Election Director Patricia Matsko.
As of Tuesday afternoon, only current Commisioner Perry Jones had filed for candidacy after the board decision Monday. A few other hopefuls had received the necessary paperwork to file from the elections board, Matsko said.
“We needed to proceed forward, because people do want to file for this race,” Matsko said.
If any party or candidate files a lawsuit in the Carroll Circuit Court ? an option the current commissioners have considered ? the board may have to stop accepting candidates until the issue is resolved, Matsko said.
But the Board of Elections might also divide candidates into their districts after a decision is made and after the campaigns have begun, she said.
Five commissioners will be elected at-large, campaigning countywide instead of within local districts after the bill to draw the lines failed in the Maryland General Assembly. After the Sept. 12 primary, the top five vote-getters from each party will proceed to the general election Nov. 7.
The five-commissioner slate was set by the 2004 referendum expanding the board from three to five members, according to advice from Assistant Attorney General Kathy Rowe.
Without set districts, a legal precedent exists for running candidates at-large, she wrote.
The at-large campaign also offers an advantage to the incumbent commissioners, who have name recognition and experience, said Herbert Smith, a professor of political science at McDaniel College and a former adviser to the Baltimore City Board of Elections Supervisors.
“The whole idea of districts was to provide responsiveness … That?s what?s been lost with the reversion to the old at-large system,” he said.
BY DISTRICT v. AT-LARGE
Candidates campaigning by district would have focused their efforts on approximately 22,000 voters living in the area they would represent. In an at-large race, almost 110,000 voters will get to weigh in on each candidate.
