“Soon, we’ll need to turn our attention to the general election — we cannot take anything for granted.” — Marc Elrich
The votes are counted, including those from absentee and provisional ballots, yet the look of the November general election ballot is yet to be decided.
On Sunday, July 8, the Montgomery County Board of Election posted its final tabulation from the June 26 Primary Election.
The two closest contests, that between the Democratic candidates for County Executive Marc Elrich and David Blair and the third person in the Democratic race for the Maryland House of Delegates representing District 16, Sara Love and Samir Paul, have declared winners: Elrich will represent Democrats for County Executive and Love will be on the Democratic ballot for District 16.
These are unofficial results, Marjorie Roher from the Montgomery County Board of Elections said. Final certification of results will be July 16.
What may change the race come November is a possible challenge of the close results. Elrich led Blair by 80 votes and Love was ahead of Paul by only nine votes.
Either of the losing candidates could challenge the results.
Also, Democratic County Councilmember Nancy Floreen filed with the County Board of Elections to run for the office of County Executive as an independent candidate.
Meanwhile Elrich is declaring victory.
In a statement sent just after midnight Monday July 9, Elrich said:
“Earlier tonight, the Board of Elections finished counting ballots from the primary election. It was close, but I received 80 votes more than my closest competitor (David Blair) and expect to be certified as your Democratic nominee for County Executive next week!”
He thanked his supporters and turned his attention to the general election.
“Soon, we’ll need to turn our attention to the general election — we cannot take anything for granted. We’ll also begin to hone our plans for how to hit the ground running in 2019 with pre-K expansion, restructuring the government, and an equitable economic development strategy. But for now, I want to take a moment to express my appreciation and celebrate what we have already accomplished. I also want to thank all the people at the Board of Elections — the Board members and the staff who have been working so hard to make sure that every vote that should have been counted was counted.”
The final vote count is this race was: Marc Elrich 37,529; David Blair, 37,449; Rose Krasnow, 19,644; Roger Berliner, 16,712; George L. Leventhal, 13,316 and Bill Frick 4,687.
Three delegates represent District 16.
Marc Korman with 13,593 votes and Ariana Kelly with 12,189 were undisputed winners of the Democratic Primary for two of those seats. Sara Love, with 11,294 votes won the right to run in the General Election. When the final count for Samir Paul came in as 11,285.
Blair’s office did not respond to a phone message or email regarding the possibility of a challenge, but Paul opened the door for a challenge in his bid for a seat at the House of Delegates.
A posting on his website July 9 read, “We're currently down by 9 votes out of 55,581 cast in the race. With a razor-thin margin like this, we'll file for a recount so we can be absolutely confident every vote was counted. ….”