The Board of Elections announced on Monday that the ballot petition to curb county spending has failed. They sent a Notice of Determination to the MCGOP committee that gathered the necessary signatures to be on the November ballot.
Following guidelines dictated by Maryland Election law, the signatures were examined and sorted, finishing on Monday, Aug. 17.
Ten thousand signatures are required to initiate a ballot referendum. Although more than 14,000 signatures were submitted, the number of valid signatures fell short by 302.
The petition would have amended the county charter to require a unanimous vote by the county council to pass a budget increase exceeding the rate of inflation.
MCM reached out to the Committee to Control MoCo Spending for a comment:
“We secured the sheets with the disposition of the signatures from the Board of Elections and will be going through them in detail to determine better what went wrong. We are planning on a new ballot petition in support of the same charter amendment for the 2028 election.”
