The Pocomoke City government expressing its usual arrogance towards any outside interference ignored warnings and pleas from the ACLU to revise its election system in APRIL 2008. Click here to read the letter.

The Mayor of Pocomoke did not present this letter to the city council and unilaterally responded to the ACLU with an undated letter stating compliance was not required.

Pocomoke election system
ACLU of Maryland teamed up with the Worcester County Branch of the NAACP this spring in contacting Pocomoke City Mayor Michael McDermott to express concern about the city’s current election system. In an April 18, 2008 letter, we urged the City to redistrict its municipal election system in advance of the next election, as the existing district system is severely malapportioned, in violation of the constitutional principle of one-person, one-vote.

A secondary problem with the system, noted in the letter, is that it unnecessarily packs the African American population into one district, raising problems under the Voting Rights Act.  We are now in negotiations with the City to resolve this matter.  C. Christopher Brown [Jeon]

Additionally the Pocomoke City government ignored its own City Charter and Code by keeping the Board of Elections Supervisors from doing its job in maintaining the lists of absentee voters.

Registration shall be permanent and no person shall be entitled to vote in City elections unless that person is registered. It shall be the duty of the Board of Supervisors of Elections to keep the registration lists current by striking from the lists those persons known to have died or otherwise become disqualified from voting.  

During the last election cycle a candidate asked that the boundaries of the election district to be clarified after being given three different lists with conflicting boundary lines. She asked that the voter registration lists could be verified and “cleaned” and were told that it was too much work and had never been done before.

The Pocomoke City Board of Election Supervisors clearly did not do the job they are required and mandated by the charter. The board like all other boards in Pocomoke is controlled by City Manager Boss Hogg Russ Blake and if he allowed them to do their job, the election would have been fair.

A formal written protest was filed asking that the election be delayed until the problems could be addressed.

No response to the protest has been given by either the Board of Election Supervisors or the Pocomoke City Government. The answer from City was to endorse the candidate who stuffed the ballot box with absentee ballots by quickly swearing her in at a meeting that had no public notice ahead of time.

Election fraud seems to be the rule not the exception in Pocomoke City, its been done in the open for decades.

What will it take for the good people of Pocomoke City to stand up to the criminals at City Hall?

It’s Pocomoke…

posted on: Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 @ 12:33 pm

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