Questions from a Court of Appeals judge left some people wondering whether Carroll County voters will have to elect three commissioners at large instead of five by districts in November.
“The 2004 referendum [when the majority of voters said they wanted five commissioners elected by district] will be sabotaged,” plaintiff Dana Dembrow said Thursday after a hearing about the voting district maps at the state?s highest court in Annapolis.
Sitting in for Judge Glenn Harrell Jr., who recused himself for unknown reasons, Judge John Eldridge questioned the constitutionality of a 2003 statute that the General Assembly passed.
The law allowed for five commissioners elected by districts ? with the stipulation that voters must agree through a referendum.
But if judges hand down a decision that says the delegation has the sole power of delineating voting districts, and a bill should have been passed without a referendum, the 2003 law will become moot and voters will have a choice of three candidates running countywide.
Joseph Getty, a former member of the districting committee, who appealed Carroll Circuit Court Judge Michael Galloway?s April 19 order that chose a map for delineating districts, said the Court of Appeal judges tackled the most fundamental questions of the case.
“Why doesn?t the local delegation pass a bill that increases commissioners from three to five and have districts in the bill?” Getty said after the hearing.
Del. Donald Elliott, R-Carroll County, who sponsored the 2003 bill, said its passage hinged on a referendum.
“We could have decided on this without taking it to the people, but we thought it was important to involve people in a change of governance that hadn?t been changed since before the Civil War,” Elliott said Thursday.
He said he based the drafting of his bill to a similar one used in Cecil County to increase the number of commissioners.
Michael Zimmer, of Sykesville, who is running for commissioner in District 5, was the only candidate to attend the hearing.
While he estimated that an at-large election could cost five times more than an election by districts and would pit him against incumbents, he said he would continue to campaign, regardless of the hearing?s outcome.
After a map delineating districts failed to pass in the Carroll delegation this past legislative session, the county Board of Elections said elections would be held at-large, and Dembrow sued, arguing that the voter referendum should be upheld.
The judges could hand down a decision in the district map case as soon as today or early next week.
