In Montgomery County, the Democratic Primary IS the General Election
In order to have a say and a vote, you need to register for the Democratic Party at least 22 days before the 2022 Primary (July 19th, 2022). 22 days before is June 27 but the earlier you do it the easier to vote and more options such as mail in voting.
Maryland Board of Elections – Voter Registration Change Link:
https://voterservices.elections.maryland.gov/OnlineVoterRegistration/InstructionsStep1
Why should I register Democrat?
The last 212 Local officials* (representing local, state, and federal) elected to office by Montgomery County, MD voters in the General Election have all been the same as the winners of the Democratic Primary.
This is every single elected official dating back to 2004 (2002 and earlier local election data starts to get messy).
During this time period an additional 10 State Delegates were appointed by the MCDCC (Democratic party).
What Difference Does It Make?
Despite being known as a dark blue county, 264,821 or about 40% of the 670,375 voters registered and active voters in Montgomery County are NOT registered Democrat.
Local Democratic Primaries have historically been pretty close and due to the smaller number of people voting during off year primaries, every vote can make a huge difference.
As an example, let’s look at the 2018 County Executive race in Democratic Primary.
County Executive was decided by a total of just 77 votes (.06% of votes)
The County Council at large was not that close but still determined by a relatively small number of voters.
There was not as much competition amongst County Council Districts due to a much smaller number of candidates
Public Financing Used for Private Primary
In 2018, $5.25 million of tax payer money went to local politicians a lot of which was spent on wooing people for the closed primary
Maryland in Minority Among States With Completely Close Primary
I’ve changed my registration. Notice the Highlighted (by us) text:
