Steve Burns
WMAL.com
ROCKVILLE — (WMAL) Montgomery County Councilmembers are meeting today to determine the best course of action after the state-run Board of Elections voted to move two early voting locations.
One spot will move from Bethesda to Potomac, and the other from Burtonsville to Brookeville.
“(This was) clearly done for partisan purposes,” said councilmember Roger Berliner at a recent Council meeting. “The belief being that (Potomac) will be more attractive to Republican voters as opposed to the downtown, urban core.”
“(Burtonsville) is the number two highest turnout site in the county, as well as the site with the highest concentration of minority voters,” Councilmember Tom Hucker said. He said voters in the area will have to drive ten miles to reach the next-closest polling site.
The move leaves one polling location, in Silver Spring, inside the Beltway.
However, the President of the Republican-controlled Board of Elections disputes the claim that this was done for partisan purposes.
“We voted to retain a number of sites that were more heavily Democratic than the two we replaced,” said Board of Elections President Jim Shalleck. “The basic premise of our moves was to increase the geographic diversity and availability of voting sites.
“Our concern is for all voters. We just believe we extended the outreach by doing what we did,” Shalleck said.
Copyright 2015 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (PHOTO: Wikipedia)
