Update: The Montgomery County Board of Elections unanimously voted in favor of adding three new early voting sites Monday to expand voting rights.

The three sites will be located at the White Oak, Nancy Dacek North Potomac, and Bauer Drive community rec centers.

Original:

Montgomery County’s Board of Elections will vote Monday on final approval of the county’s early voting sites for the 2022 elections. This comes after a statewide bill to expand voting rights passed this year.

The five-member board will vote on where to place additional early voting sites, which will increase from 11 to 14. If approved, the three sites would be at the White Oak, Nancy Dacek North Potomac and Bauer Drive community rec centers. The change is based on 2020 U.S. Census data, which shows that the county’s population grew by 9.3% since 2010 to approximately 1.1 million people. The board also had to take into consideration a law passed by the Maryland General Assembly this year that allows counties with more than 600,000 registered voters to have up to 14 early voting sites. The new law also requires counties’ boards of elections to account for factors including the sites’ proximity to historically-disenfranchised communities, dense concentrations of voters, and public transportation.

At a virtual public hearing on Saturday, Elisse Barnes, one of the two Democrats on the board and a White Oak resident, commented on the importance of having a voting site in her neighborhood.

“This is what democracy is all about — making sure everyone’s voice is heard and that we have free and fair elections,” Barnes said.

The statewide law was passed due, in part, to a contentious debate prior to the 2020 elections — between the Republican-controlled county board of elections and the Democratically-controlled county council — on where to place an additional early voting site. At that time, in late 2019, the majority of the county’s board of elections members said it was inappropriate to spend taxpayer funds to open a 12th early voting site at White Oak; meanwhile, county leaders and Democrats on the local elections board said voters in the Silver Spring/White Oak area had to deal with a lack of public transportation and voting wait times of 45 minutes or more.

The majority of the people attending the virtual public hearing Saturday spoke in favor of the proposed three new sites — especially White Oak. Daniel Koroma, long-time resident and voting rights advocate in White Oak, said he was happy to hear about the new early voting site proposals.

“This site will increase access to voting and increase voter satisfaction,” Koroma said.. “A lot of people have apathy when it comes to voting, they feel like their vote does not count. You will reverse that.”

Sandra Zimmet, a resident of Leisure World, a senior living community in Silver Spring, had a different sort of message for the elections board. She complained that authorities weren’t keeping up with high voter participation there.

“There’s no doubt that older Americans are dedicated when it comes to voting,” Zimmet told the board. “We’re grateful to you for providing Leisure World with a small drop box during the 2020 election. We used it in great numbers, so much so that our residents complained of having to force their ballots into the drop box which constantly was filled to the brim.”

Zimmet suggested the board provide a larger drop box for the almost 9,000 residents at the senior living facility.

In addition to determining early voting sites on Monday, the board will also be reviewing proposed ballot drop box locations.

This story was updated with the result of the board’s vote.