Charter Change Would Disenfanchise Elderly Voters

Where in the world is our town going? The town manager proposed at the last commissioner workshop that our voter registration system for Ridgely residents be scraped.

As it now stands, people registered for national and state elections are automatically registered to vote in town. We also have a parallel system where people who (for whatever reason) are only registered in town for town elections. This is an old fashioned way of doing things and most of the registrants are elderly. There aren't many registrations like this and after all these years these people aren't going to register any other way. What's the problem? Have these Ridgely residents voted the "wrong" way in our town elections? Mean old Mr. Machiavelli would be proud.

Although we do need comprehensive charter change, we don't need this type of selective change which would only serve to limit the Ridgely electorate. Fortunately, time may be on the side of democracy here. There isn't enough time for a charter change before the April election. Also, it's not clear whether or not the commissioners took this proposal seriously. With all the problems Ridgley faces, I doubt they want to waste time tinkering with the charter and hearing the howls of protest from their fellow citizens.