By Greg Ellison

(Feb.18, 2021) Meeting for the first time this year, the Ocean Pines Election Committee held a virtual session last Friday to begin planning the 2021 director’s contest, while also highlighting a pending referendum and potential future use of electronic voting.

Board election 2021

Committee Chairman Steve Habeger welcomed back members who last convened in the fall to finalize the 2020 Board election report.

“This is like the first day of school,” he said.

With the candidate-filing deadline for the 2021 Board election on May 10, Habeger said the committee’s annual rollercoaster ride is just leaving the gate.

“We’re sort of ratcheting up to what’s called the first drop and gaining energy,” he said. “We don’t tip over until early May when we get candidates in … then we start the election process.”

Two board members, Frank Daly and Frank Brown, have terms that expire this year, with OPA Bylaws requiring two more candidates than open seats.

In the event that mark is not reached by the initial May 10 filing deadline, as was the case in 2020, additional time is provided until the third Friday in June to seek further entries.

“We did that last year [and] we didn’t get any candidates from the extension,” he said. “We had three who filed by the May 10 deadline.”

Committee member Carol Ludwig asked what procedures exist to help assure the proper number of candidates are involved in annual board elections.

Habeger said recruiting election candidates is a board responsibility but the committee should assure the issue remains a top focus.

“I’ll take a look at where I can put a reminder to the board, if necessary, for additional candidates,” he said.

Habeger said the later June filing deadline still provides a two-week window to print and mail election materials so they will arrive a minimum of 30 days before the ballot due date in early August.

Turning to new business, the committee unanimously approved a bid contract for 2021 election printing and mailing services.

Habeger, whose second Election Committee term ends this September, said he would not seek reappointment as chair.

Spending referendum

Board liaison Frank Brown asked about voting system options regarding an upcoming referendum question.

“This year the association is going to be doing a referendum relating to the spending limit,” he said. “I believe within 90 days.”

Habeger said OPA balloting systems were redesigned last year to abandon increasingly outdated Scantron technology used previously.

“The plan would be that a referendum would be printed on an 8.5 x 11 paper and the bottom would be perforated with a yes or no,” he said.

Habeger said the revamped election systems would provide a second alternative for referendum questions.

“What we bought was a subscription to a survey website that can handle huge servings,” he said. “That is available for the association to use anytime anyway they see fit.”

Electronic voting

Reviving discussions from last year’s ballot system redesign work, prior to the committee meeting last week Habeger had asked Brown to gauge the board’s sentiments about employing electronic voting in future elections.

Brown said the board does not favor deploying electronic voting at the moment.

“They wanted to try the new system for a while and see how that works, since we evidently have paid a lot of money,” he said.

Still, Brown said the issue is far from decided.

“There’s no definite yes or no right now,” he said. “They did say the Election Committee should form a subcommittee that would do a thorough report on how electronic voting would work.”

Brown said the board intends to use the report to reach a final conclusion on the matter.

Committee member Bob Windsor said the group had examined related costs for mail-in versus electronic voting systems several years ago and found no compelling difference.

“It’s basically a wash from our perspective,” he said. “The cost that the website people would charge is almost the same as we pay for the business reply envelopes.”

Committee member Mary Anne Whitcomb, as well as Ludwig and Windsor, agreed to form a subgroup to conduct a study about the potential for future elections to be conducted online.