ROCKVILLE, Md. — It has been a slow start to early voting in statewide and local primary elections in Maryland where polls opened Thursday morning.
Montgomery County authorities reported only 220 voters had turned out to the county's 14 early polling sites during the first two hours of early voting. Some voters said they believed that delaying the primaries until July may be having an impact on turnout.
“I believe that we don't have a lot of people coming in today because of the change of the voting date," said Millie West-Wiggins, who had just finished voting at the Bauer Drive Community Center in Rockville, where campaign workers and an ocean of signs vastly outnumbered actual voters.
Gilberto Zelaya, the spokesperson for Montgomery County's Board of Elections, said everything went smoothly on the first day of early voting, but noted it was "extremely quiet."
"You're competing with summer interests, the beach, camps, etc," Zelaya said.
In March, Maryland’s Court of Special Appeals ordered that the primaries be pushed back to July from their traditional date in June so that courts could sort out the flood of legal challenges to redistricting. Many voters are now adjusting to the new date as well as being redistricted within new boundaries with unfamiliar candidates.
Montgomery County is also among the Maryland jurisdictions reporting trouble recruiting and training enough volunteers to run the polls, raising concerns that election day, July 19, could be plagued by a workers shortage if turnout is heavy.
Zelaya reported the county has about 2,700 judges trained, down from the target of 3,500 judges to man the polls.
“What we're asking our voters is not to wait until election day," Zelaya said. "Take advantage. We have eight consecutive days of early voting from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m."
Voters have until July 12 to request a mail-in ballot from their board of elections.
Zelaya encourages voters who vote by mail to do so as soon as possible, so that poll workers can identify problems such as missing signatures in time to help voters correct oversights.