Harford County’s early voting centers will remain open on Election Day under a new plan approved by the Maryland State Board of Elections, though their locations are still pending approval.
The plan allows for opening voting centers — places where any county resident can vote, regardless of their precinct — amid a shortage of election judges, who have been resigning in alarming numbers due to fears of contracting COVID-19. Most of the voting centers would be at public high schools.
Acting election director for the Harford County Board of Elections Kimberley Slusar said that Harford will open early voting sites from Oct. 26 through Nov. 2. The centers will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. and require 400 judges to staff. Those centers will also remain open on Election Day, Nov. 3.
Typically, Harford County has four early voting centers. This year’s sites, when they are approved, will come equipped with drop-boxes; another drop box will be placed at the Harford County Board of Elections building at 133 Industry Lane in Forest Hill.
On the Harford board of elections website, it lists the four early voting sites as the McFaul Activity Center in Bel Air, the Edgewood library, the Aberdeen Activity Center and the Jarrettsville Fire Hall.
Under the plan approved by the state board, Harford County will need 700 election judges to fully staff Election Day voting centers on Nov. 3, Slusar said. She did not say Monday if the county had an adequate number of judges to hold an election, but encouraged residents to apply through the board’s website.
“We have Election Judges resigning on a daily basis due to the risk of exposure to COVID,” she wrote in an email.
Slusar did not say where the voting centers, or early voting centers, would be located. That matter is still pending approval by the state board of elections. The plan floated by state board member Patrick “P.J.” Hogan emphasized the use of high schools as sites for vote centers.
Harford County has 10 public high schools: Bel Air, C. Milton Wright, Patterson Mill and Harford Tech in Bel Air; North Harford in Pylesville; and Aberdeen, Edgewood, Fallston, Havre de Grace and Joppatowne high schools.
Asked if the local board of elections had sought to use the public school buildings, Slusar said it had “already received approval from Harford County.”
“Our Board is in the processes of approving the locations. Once our Board approves, it moves forward to the State Board for approval,” Slusar wrote. “I am unable to discuss the expected locations until they are finalized by both Boards.”
In a follow-up message, Slusar said she’d hoped to get approval from the local board in time to get it on the state board’s agenda for next Wednesday, Aug. 26.
Jillian Lader, a spokesperson for Harford County Public Schools, said the board of elections does not intend to use any schools as early voting sites. The board has not finalized the list of schools that could be used as voting centers on Election Day.
Normally, the state opens approximately 1,600 polling places on Election Day — 63 of which are in Harford County. Those 63 places would have required 816 judges to staff, Slusar previously told The Aegis.
Harford County Councilman Tony Giangiordano, representing Bel Air and Forest Hill, objected to mail-in ballots and closing polling places at the state board’s Aug. 12 meeting. In a letter to the board, Giangiordano, a Republican, brought up the issues with the June primary and made known his disapproval of “massive closures of polls and early voting centers.”
In lieu of closing polling places, Giangiordano recommended calling in the National Guard to enforce guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“I recommend to call upon Governor Hogan to request the Maryland National Guard to promote the regulations/recommendations provided by the CDC during the November Elections,” he wrote. “Board of Elections volunteers are more than capable to promote CDC regulations while conducting elections at voting polls and early voting centers. With the Maryland National Guard to further regulate, the November Elections can be done fairly and safely.”
Like other jurisdictions, Harford is facing a shortage of election judges. As of the Aug. 7 meeting where the vote center proposal was approved for Gov. Larry Hogan’s review, there were over 14,000 vacant election judge positions. As of two weeks ago, 400 Harford County election judges had opted out of the November elections.
Many election judges in the county are older and could be at higher risk for a serious COVID-19 infection; 662 judges on record in Harford are at least 60 years old, Slusar said.
The Maryland Association of Election Officials estimated about half of Marylanders would vote in-person and the other half by mail. At the state board’s Aug. 7 meeting, representatives of the association forecast historic turnout for the presidential election.
Slusar wrote that Harford County’s board of elections has already received about 7,500 applications to receive a mail-in ballot.