OCEAN PINES – Officials in Ocean Pines last week approved changes to the association’s elections resolution, allowing for ballots to be counted by an independent contractor and for the process to be viewed remotely.
Last Saturday, the Ocean Pines Board of Directors voted unanimously to a second reading of revisions involving Resolution M-06, elections and referendums.
The proposed changes, reviewed by the Ocean Pines Elections Committee, would give either the committee or an independent contractor the ability to count ballots and would allow for association members to view the ballot counting process remotely.
“If I’m a betting man, and I’m not, I would expect this would not be the final change to M-06,” said Association President Doug Parks, “that more changes would come and frankly more changes should be expected.”
In May, the board voted to hire Washington-based company Election Trust as the association’s new voting contract. At the time, however, it was learned Resolution M-06 would need to be changed to address some inconsistencies.
Specifically, the existing resolution required the elections committee to count the ballots and for the association to open the ballot counting process to association members. After Election Trust was hired to print and handle all election materials for the 2023 board election, the committee began working with legal counsel to amend the resolution and allow for outsourced and remote ballot counting.
When the second reading was introduced last week, Director Steve Jacobs shared his concerns regarding the changes. While he said he would vote for the amendments, he said some of the suggested edits were inconsistent with the association’s bylaws.
“These are small issues, but it reflects the fact that we are perhaps rushing to get this done as opposed to putting everything in the correct order and having a review in place where we have all of our ducks in a row,” he said. “I’ll vote for this resolution, but I would strongly suggest that we take steps to make sure that we’re not faced with this problem again after this election is over.”
Jacobs said members of the Ocean Pines Bylaws and Resolutions Committee had reviewed the proposed changes and were left with several questions.
He suggested both the bylaws and resolutions committee and the elections committee form a group to review Resolution M-06 after the 2023 election concludes.
“My interest at this point, with the election coming up, is we probably need to get this put away, at least for this election,” he said. “But I do think it is incumbent upon the elections committee, however it’s constructed, shortly after this next election, to sit down and align M-06 and all the attachments to M-06 with our bylaws, with our procedures and with an eye looking forward to what we’re going to be facing in the future as best as we can. I will run the risk, frankly, of saying the bylaws committee should do the same.”
He continued, “This situation, where we are faced with trying to get this done with the election coming up in the next months, should not reoccur next year.”
Parks agreed, noting that the two committees and the new board would need to do more work after the 2023 election was finished.
“This isn’t the end,” he said. “I would expect a couple things to happen after the next election. Number one, after conducting the election itself, both the bylaws and resolutions committee, the new board and the elections committee will have information pursuant to how the election was conducted. So I think it’s incumbent on all three of those to work together to see what we learned after this election.”
With no further discussion, the board voted unanimously to accept the changes to Resolution M-06 on second reading.