If implemented, the precinct closure plan recommended by Montgomery County Board of Elections Executive Director Margaret Jurgensen would disproportionately close precincts that voted for Nancy Navarro in 2008. That fact is abundantly clear from publicly-available information that is easily available to the board.
Below is a list of all District 4 precincts, their planned diversions to other precincts, and their turnout and winner in the 2008 District 4 special election. Click on the image for a larger view.
Of the 22 precincts won by Don Praisner, 8 will be closed and diverted to other precincts while 14 will remain undisturbed. Of the 21 precincts won by Nancy Navarro, 13 will be closed and diverted to other precincts, 7 will be undisturbed and 1 will have its voting location changed (to the Marilyn J. Praisner Community Recreation Center).
But there is more. Of the 5 precincts that had the highest turnout rates for Don Praisner, none will be diverted. Of the 5 precincts that had the highest turnout rates for Nancy Navarro, 4 will be diverted. The two precincts in Leisure World, which went for Mr. Praisner by 15 points and gave him 44% of his margin, will be left undisturbed even though they were split in two less than two years ago.
Furthermore, Navarro won a disproportionately large share of precincts with high black and Latino populations. By targeting Navarro’s precincts for shutdown, the Board of Elections plan may very well inconvenience black and Latino voters at greater rates than white voters.
This is the second major blunder by the Board of Elections’ Executive Director in less than a year. Just two months ago, Maryland’s Court of Appeals ruled the board made two major mistakes in its rulings on a referendum proposed by opponents of Montgomery County’s new transgender anti-discrimination law. First, the court found the board inaccurately calculated the signature threshold for getting the referendum on the ballot. Second, the court found the board should have checked the validity of petition signatures rather than merely count them. The board’s mistakes cost the county untold thousands of dollars in unsuccessfully defending a lawsuit against the referendum by supporters of the anti-discrimination law.
And now the Board of Elections’ Executive Director is proposing a precinct shutdown plan that could very well swing the District 4 election against one of the candidates and potentially disadvantage black and Latino voters.
The Board of Elections must pre-empt another debacle in the making and kill this plan. And perhaps it should reconsider the continued employment of its Executive Director as well.
Update: One reader pointed out that former County Executive Doug Duncan called for the resignation of the Executive Director over two years ago.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Board of Elections Plan Targets Navarro Precincts for Closure (Updated)
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3 comments:
Adam,
I agree with you that the BoE should have all of the precincts open and not close any of them.
But are you sure that these precincts belong to Navarro??? I thought they belong to the people who live there, not any one candidate.
This election will be different than the one just a year ago. There will be two or more candidates who did not run a year ago and those new candidates might do better in the precincts you have already given to the second place finisher a year ago.
More importantly the tone of this blog post and several others you come across as if you have already selected your candidate and if so then you should declare it. That is something you and I have always advocated for MPW -- to let people know who you are for.
I have not decided on a candidate for this race. I will let you know if and when I do. But this is now fourth post that you have tilted towards one candidate. Declare your support or start to write a more balanced post.
Kevin, please consider the following items in our coverage:
1. We ran Chris Paladino's announcement and bio. No other media outlet did that.
2. We protested Cary Lamari's exclusion from the Post twice. No other media outlet did that. We also linked to his Just Up the Pike interview.
3. In our summary of the last election, we discussed Navarro's problems with developer contributions and the Weast meeting.
4. Our spy comments were hardly slanted to Navarro. In fact, one of them slammed her for being too close to Weast. Two spies picked Navarro as the winner and two spies picked Kramer.
5. The intent of this post was to point out how the precinct plan was slanted against one candidate. I did that using data possessed by the Board of Elections. Since Navarro is the only candidate who is running again in the special election, it is impossible to evaluate the plan's impact on the other candidates.
6. Last time, my union contributed to Navarro, a fact that I repeatedly disclosed. I have never contributed to her. I am not a member of her Facebook group, don't make campaign decisions for her and don't live in her district. I generally favor pro-union candidates, but that's not news to anyone who reads this blog.
I've never pretended to be completely objective. I throw out a combination of fact and opinion and regularly disclose my employment (with the Carpenters Union) and my political affiliations (with the District 18 Democratic Team). The readers know where I'm coming from. If they want to say, "He's a union guy, so we'll take his opinions with a grain of salt on union-backed candidates," so be it.
One of the concerns that has been voiced is about voting in public schools when students are there. Another concern is parking.
It should be noted that there are no public schools in Leisure World - for obvious reasons as it is an age restricted over 55 community - so there would be no need to change the voting venue there.
It should be also assumed that parking would be easier at a rec center than at a nearby school.
No matter what the decision ultimately is - I would prefer that all of the precincts remain the same as that is better for voter turnout and I do not believe that the county should do anything to deter the public process of voter access to polling places. Also to be noted - voting is a habit - parties spend millions to get people in the habit of voting - usually in the same polling place; let's not mess up a good system to save a few dollars and confuse the voters.
Every election there are concerns about having enough judges - last election the schools were closed and many students got service hours for volunteering at the polls. Let's utilize the HS government classes in this way again - perhaps they can fill in some gaps during the day. Maybe seeing the empty polling places in a low turnout election will be the best civics lesson yet.
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