JOSH DAVIS/BAYSIDE GAZETTE
Elections Committee Chairman Steve Habeger and Marketing Director Denise Sawyer last Friday discuss plans for a “Your Vote Counts” campaign in Ocean Pines.

By Josh Davis, Associate Editor

(Feb. 21, 2019) “Your vote counts” is the theme of a new publicity campaign of the Ocean Pines Elections Committee aimed at increasing voter turnout and reducing voter error in the next board of directors election.

Last year, 80 votes were not counted, including 66 received after the voting deadline. Ocean Pines elections are conducted each year by mailed ballots that are sent to prospective voters in July and must be returned to association officials by a certain date in August.

The difference in 2018 between the fourth-place finisher, who was elected, and the fifth-place finisher, who was not, was just 23 votes.

“It was a small [margin] and it could’ve made a big difference, and so ‘your vote counts,’” Committee Chairman Steve Habeger said during a public meeting last Friday.

Habeger said efforts last year to reduce certain types of voter error were effective. In 2017, 41 ballots were not counted because voters selected more than the allowed number of candidates. In 2018, just four ballots were not counted for the same reason.

The committee altered the physical ballots last year, with voting instructions placed inside a large, colored box.

“That went very well,” committee member Virginia Sutula said. “I think the ballot is beautiful [and] the directions are clear.”

This year, the committee is focusing on getting ballots returned on time.

Committee member Mark Heintz suggested a bold, red stamp on election mailings to let voters know, one, that they contain ballots and, two, when they’re due back.

“Maybe if we stamp the outside of the envelope that this is a ballot, instead of junk mail, that would help,” he said.

“Make that envelope more violent,” Sutula added.

Habeger said mailings, traditionally, were simply stamped, “action required.”

Marketing Director Denise Sawyer said Ocean Pines could also make use of the new Northstar software systems to push out election notifications.

The other number the elections committee are focusing on is 41, which is the percentage of homeowners who voted in the last election.

“Getting people to vote, I think, is priority number one,” Habeger said. “Priority number two is getting the ballot in on time.”

Firmed election dates this year are as follows:

For candidates, the deadline to submit an application is May 10. The association secretary must verify candidate eligibility by May 15 and submit a list of eligible candidates to the committee by June 1. Candidates are generally publicly announced by June 1.

A candidate draw to determine ballot order is scheduled on June 7, with an informational candidate workshop also set for that date.

Candidate forums are scheduled on June 12 and June 22, both to be held in the Assateague Room of the Ocean Pines Community Center.

The cutoff for voter eligibility is July 3 and the target date to mail ballots is July 10.

Ballots must be received by Aug. 7. Votes will be counted and totals announced on Aug. 9 and results will be validated during the Ocean Pines Annual Meeting on Aug. 10.