The Howard County Citizens Association (HCCA) Board is appalled that yet another referendum attempt by citizens of Howard County has failed, not because they didn’t get the needed amount of signatures-they did-but because of the poor process by the Board of Elections (BOE). In this case the BOE waited until all the signatures had been gathered before ruling on the legal sufficiency of the summary provided after having led the petitioners to believe in August the summary was sufficient. The BOE had plenty of time to rule on this, but chose to wait until it was too late for the petitioners to adjust. Why?
This is the third time in less than 10 years the citizen’s right to redress has been thwarted by the BOE because they found some procedural or legal way around having to certify the referendum. HCCA disapproves this situation and will work towards getting a process that will actually allow citizens their right to referendum.
Stu Kohn
HCCA, President