By Morgan Pilz, Staff Writer

(July 18, 2019) The Ocean Pines Elections Committee still has much work to do for this summer’s board of directors’ election, but at least the ballots and notifications have been mailed.

More than 7,600 ballots for the 2019 Ocean Pines Board election were sent this week to voters. Additionally, 768 notices of the annual meeting were sent to property owners ineligible to vote.

Eligible voters in Ocean Pines refers to homeowners “in good standing,” meaning they do not have outstanding violations or unpaid assessments. The cutoff for voter eligibility was July 3.

Election mailings are marked “IMMEDIATE ATTENTION! Ballot receipt deadline 5 p.m., Aug. 7, 2019” in a red rectangle on the front of the envelope in bold print.

The committee’s next step, Chairman Steve Haberger said at last Friday’s meeting, would be to test the ballot machine for accuracy. To that end, he in a handful of test ballots.

“What we’re going to do is mark these up and run them through the Scantron to test [it],” Habeger said. “We will mark them correctly and incorrectly and make sure when the scantron reads the incorrect one – it will vote for four people – that the vote totals that the machine puts in is exactly what we expect.”

The committee will repeat this process the day of the ballot count.

Habeger also commented on the success of the two candidates’ forums held in the Assateague Room last month.

“I had several people say that the candidates not knowing the questions in advance was a very positive thing,” he said. “Generally, people liked the questions that we asked. [They] thought that we hit the important topics we needed to address and people wanted to know about.”

“There were some big issues,” committee member Bob Windsor agreed. “One of the biggest issues were, ‘Why do you want to do this?’ and, ‘What do you bring?’ and I know we’ve done financial things specifically. Those are big topics.”

Voters this year may select up to three candidates from the pool of seven, who are. in ballot order, Tom Janasek, Larry Perrone, Camilla Rogers, Paula Gray, Shawn Kotwica, Ed Solum and Gregory Turner. The top three voter-getters will each be elected to three-year terms on the Ocean Pines board.

Completed ballots must be received by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 7. They may be returned either to the ballot box inside the police department office in the Ocean Pines Administration Building on 239 Ocean Parkway or mailed to the Ocean Pines post office box in Berlin.

For questions about ballots and voting procedures, call the Elections Committee at 410-208-3989. Committee members will try to respond to questions within a day.

Ballot counting will occur on Friday, Aug. 9 at 10 a.m. in the East Room of the Ocean Pines Community Center on 235 Ocean Parkway. Election results will be announced immediately after the count.

Results will be validated during the annual meeting on Saturday, Aug. 10 at 10 a.m. in the Assateague Room of the community center. Lot owners are asked to bring their ID in order to be verified. A quorum of at least 100 lots is required in order to hold the annual meeting.