Maryland's Congressional Districts Will Head to Voters

Maryland's State Board of Elections certified enough valid signatures this week to put the state's newly drawn U.S. Congressional boundaries to a referendum vote this November.

"The current validation reached the sufficient number for ballot placement," said Donna Duncan, Maryland's election management division director. "The current number that I have is 56,323 valid names and there is still about 2,900 that are left to verify."

The petitioners only needed to collect 55,736 in order to make it onto the ballot this November.

Duncan said her office will continue to verify the remaining signatures even though the petitioners have already met the threshold.

Anne Arundel County is the current leader among all Maryland counties with 11,730 valid signatures. 

Republican State Central Committee of Anne Arundel County member Scott Shaffer said he wasn't surprised that the county led in numbers.

Shaffer said he thinks the county is large enough to warrant having its own seat.

"The strong support for this petition is a clear sign that Anne Arundel County voters believe it's time to once again unite our communities into a single Congressional district, as they had been from the first Congress in 1789 until the redistricting plan following the 1990 census," Shaffer said.

Duncan said the language that will appear on the November ballot will not be certified until the third Monday in August. 

What do you think about the congressional boundaries as they are currently drawn?