Carroll County Board of Education candidates will not be on primary election ballot
When voters in Carroll County head to the polls on May 14 to cast their vote in the primary election, the names of the four candidates running for the school board will not be on the ballot.
Those candidates running for the two open seats on Carroll County’s Board of Education — Muri Dueppen, Amanda Jozkowski, Greg Malveaux and Kristen Zihmer — will proceed through the primary election and move right to the Nov. 5 general election. The top two vote-getters in the general election will be elected to the school board.
“A total of five candidates needed to file for office for the Board of Education contest to be on the primary ballot,” said Erin Perrone, election director for the Carroll County Board of Elections. “Only four candidates filed. So, those four candidates automatically win the primary and will be on the ballot in the general election in November.”
Perrone, who was appointed the new director of the Board of Elections in November, following the appointment of former director Katherine Berry as the deputy administrator of the Maryland State Board of Elections in September, said to her knowledge this situation has not happened in at least 14 years in Carroll County.
“Other staff who have been here longer than me stated that ‘this is the first time’ that they know of when we will not have a nonpartisan ballot in the primary election,” she said.
The Board of Education is a nonpartisan body.
In the 2022 gubernatorial election, three seats were open on the school board and eight candidates ran in the primary election.
In Maryland, residents registered as either Republican or Democrat cast a ballot in the primary election. Typically, voters not registered with either party have cast a ballot for school board candidates, since it is a nonpartisan race.
This year, voters who are not registered with either party, totaling about 32,000 in Carroll County, will be notified that there will be no ballot for them in the May primary, Perrone said.
Postcards will be mailed to those voters, she said.
“We would like to notify you that Carroll County will not have a contest for the Board of Education in the upcoming May primary,” the postcard states. “There will not be a nonpartisan ballot in the primary election. The Board of Education contest will appear on the ballot in the November general election.”
Information will be included on the postcard for those residents who want to vote in the primary by registering either Republican or Democrat. The deadline to change party affiliation is April 23.
Early voting for the primary is scheduled for May 2-9. Mail-in ballots can be requested by mail, fax, online or in person — each with different stipulations. For more information, go to https://elections.maryland.gov/voting/absentee.html.
Information about polling places is also available online, at https://voterservices.elections.maryland.gov/PollingPlaceSearch.