Politics & Government

Anne Arundel County Election: Previewing County Executive Race, Legal Weed, Term Limits

Anne Arundel will elect a county executive and County Council members on Tuesday. Legal marijuana and term limits are also on the ballot.

Jacob Baumgart's profile picture
Jacob Baumgart, Patch StaffVerified Patch Staff Badge
Democratic incumbent Steuart Pittman (right) and Republican challenger Jessica Haire (left) are running for Anne Arundel County executive. Here's everything you need to know about Tuesday’s Election Day 2022 in Maryland.
Democratic incumbent Steuart Pittman (right) and Republican challenger Jessica Haire (left) are running for Anne Arundel County executive. Here's everything you need to know about Tuesday’s Election Day 2022 in Maryland. (Jacob Baumgart/Patch)

ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MD — Anne Arundel County residents will head to the polls Tuesday to decide races from County Council to governor. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. Marylanders must vote at their assigned polling place on Election Day.

Voters using a mail-in ballot can still return their ballot by mail, as long as it gets postmarked by Tuesday. Residents can also return their mail-in ballot to one of these drop boxes in their county or hand deliver it to their local board of elections by 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Election Preview

Voters will decide their next county executive and County Council members. Several local offices in the Maryland General Assembly are also up for grabs.

Find out what's happening in Annapolisfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

Statewide races include those for governor, comptroller and attorney general. Congressional contests feature battles for the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.

A statewide referendum will decide if recreational marijuana will be legal in Maryland.

Find out what's happening in Annapolisfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

In Anne Arundel County, a ballot question seeks to loosen the County Council's term limit. This measure would extend the current limit of two terms of 4 years each to three terms of 4 years each. Voting yes to this question would support County Council members staying in office for longer.

Here is Patch's Anne Arundel County voter guide with everything you need to know about the 2022 Maryland general election.

Tuesday is Election Day. An early voting center at Arundel Middle School is pictured above during this year's primary. (Jacob Baumgart/Patch)

Who's Running For County Executive?

The county executive's race is the most high-profile contest.

Democratic incumbent Steuart Pittman is facing Republican challenger Jessica Haire, who is serving her first term representing south county as the District 7 council member.

Pittman leads Haire by 8 percentage points, a new poll from The Capital said. More details on the poll are posted at the bottom of this section.

Pittman, a former farmer and horse trainer, bills himself as an environmentalist who has kept taxes at a lower rate than comparable Maryland counties. The Davidsonville native is endorsed by the county teacher, police and firefighter unions.

Haire, an engineer and an attorney, pitches herself as a fiscal conservative who wants to trim governmental waste. The Edgewater resident is endorsed by the Anne Arundel County Association of Realtors. Haire has also worked closely with Campaign Chairman Nic Kipke, a Republican representing the Pasadena area in the House of Delegates.

Pittman took office in 2018 after thwarting the re-election bid of then County Executive Steve Schuh.

Some of Pittman's proudest accomplishments include:

  • Delivering a tax cut this year on the first $50,000 of taxable income.
  • Having the 7th-lowest property taxes of Maryland's 24 jurisdictions, which is the best rate in this region of the state.
  • Earning the county's first triple-A bond rating from Moody's, a credit rating company.
  • Starting to convert the county's fleet to electric vehicles.
  • Funding the construction of a new 911 call center and a new police firing range.

Pittman also orchestrated $5,000 signing and retention bonuses for school bus drivers to combat the ongoing shortage. That has not solved the issue completely. Families still have to check if their routes have a driver each day, leaving many students without rides to school.

Haire thinks this unreliable school transportation is one of the biggest dings against Pittman's administration. She recently posted a Capital Gazette article on Facebook that said students have missed a combined 3,100 days of school because of bus issues.

"We can't even get our kids to school," Haire said at an October debate with Pittman. "We can do better than this. Together, we can change this trajectory."

Related: Analyzing Pittman Vs. Haire After Anne Arundel County Executive Debate

Pittman has frequently called out Haire for voting against this year's bipartisan budget, which included raises for all Anne Arundel County Public Schools teachers and staff.

Haire challenged Pittman's savings plan for the county. She highlighted Pittman's $110.8 million deposit this year into the county's rainy day fund. Rather than save that budget surplus, Haire would've rather had a larger tax cut.

Pittman has accused Haire of accepting $250,000 in campaign contributions from donors related to a company seeking to build a rubble landfill in a quiet Odenton community.

Pittman and Haire both said they oppose the landfill.

Haire also said a public information review found that she did not have any documents about the landfill in her county computer, phone, email or office files.

The landfill plans are currently on hold. The County Council, including Haire, voted unanimously to buy the land that developers needed to access the proposed landfill site. The county is now building an elementary school on that plot.

Pittman and Haire also disagree on development strategies.

Pittman wants to build higher-density projects at town centers in Annapolis, Glen Burnie and Odenton. He thinks this would create more affordable housing near transportation hubs.

"We cannot all afford a half an acre lot and a $700,000 house," Pittman said at the debate. "If we are going to support our community and move forward, we've got to say we're going to support smart growth."

Haire is against those large developments in already-crowded areas. She believes these projects would increase traffic.

Democrat Steuart Pittman, pictured above, is seeking a second term as Anne Arundel County executive. (Jacob Baumgart/Patch)

Pittman holds 48 percent of the vote to Haire's 40 percent, The Capital poll found.

OpinionWorks, an Annapolis survey company, polled 439 likely Anne Arundel County voters from Oct. 20 through Oct. 25. The interviews were conducted by telephone and the internet.

The poll had a margin of error of +/- 4.8 percentage points. That means there is a 95 percent chance that the actual portion of residents who share those beliefs falls within 4.8 percentage points in either direction of the values listed in the survey.

More information on the poll is outlined in The Capital's full story, which is only available to subscribers of The Capital and The Baltimore Sun.

Pittman's lead represents a comeback. A September poll from Anne Arundel Community College had Haire with 33% of the vote to Pittman's 31 percent with another 36 percent of respondents undecided at that point.

The Anne Arundel Community College poll had a margin of error of +/- 4.5 percentage points. It surveyed 468 random county adults from Sept. 23 through Oct. 1. Interviews were conducted online.

Republican challenger Jessica Haire, shown here, hopes to oust Pittman on Election Day. (Jacob Baumgart/Patch)

Be sure to read Patch's county executive debate coverage.

To learn more about Pittman, visit PittmanForPeople.com. Additional details on Haire are available at JessicaHaire.com.

Related:

Who's Running For County Council?

All the County Council candidates are posted below. The names of incumbents are bolded and starred.

Patch asked every County Council candidate to complete a questionnaire. The names of candidates who completed our survey are linked to their responses.

We also included all the campaign websites listed on the Maryland State Board of Elections candidate portal.

County Council District 1

County Council District 2

County Council District 3

County Council District 4

County Council District 5

County Council District 6

County Council District 7

Who Is Running For State Government?

Governor

Related:

Comptroller

Related:

Attorney General

Related:

State Senate District 12

State Senate District 21

State Senate District 30

State Senate District 31

State Senate District 32

State Senate District 33

  • Sid Saab (R): sidsaab.com (Saab was the delegate for District 33, but he is now running to be the area's state senator)
  • Dawn D. Gile (D): dawngile.com

Related:

State House District 12B (Vote for one)

State House District 21 (Vote for up to three)

State House District 30A (Vote for up to two)

State House District 30B (Vote for one)

State House District 31 (Vote for up to three)

State House District 32 (Vote for up to three)

State House District 33A (Vote for one)

State House District 33B (Vote for one)

State House District 33C (Vote for one)

Who Is Running For Congress?

U.S. Senate

U.S. House District 3

U.S. House District 5

Is Anybody Else Running?

Yes. Several court positions and party central committee seats are also on the ballot. A full list of every race in Maryland is posted at this link.

For any other questions, visit elections.maryland.gov.

What District Am I In?

Marylanders can see which districts they live in by using this tool. That resource also lets voters:

  • Check their polling place.
  • Review their voter registration record.
  • Request a duplicate voter registration card.
  • Learn where to vote.
  • See their current state and federal representatives.
  • Contact their local board of elections.
  • Check the status of their mail-in or provisional ballot.
  • View their sample ballot.

Anne Arundel residents can click here to see who their county council member is.

Are There Any Referendums?

Marylanders will decide five ballot measures in the Nov. 8 general election. The one with the widest impact is the question of whether recreational marijuana should be legal, known as Ballot Question 4.

If passed, residents 21 and older could use and possess up to 1.5 ounces of usable cannabis or 12 grams of concentrated cannabis on or after July 1, 2023.

More than half of Maryland's registered voters support legalizing recreational marijuana, multiple polls suggest.

Related:

The other statewide ballot measures, as explained by Ballotpedia, if approved would:

  • Rename the Maryland Court of Appeals as the Supreme Court of Maryland and change the Maryland Court of Special Appeals to the Appellate Court of Maryland.
  • Amend the Maryland Constitution to require that state legislators live in and maintain a primary residence in the district they wish to represent for at least six months before an election.
  • Amend the Maryland Constitution to only guarantee the right to a jury trial in civil cases if the amount in question is greater than $25,000. The current minimum for a jury trial is $15,000.
  • Amend the state constitution to require that Howard County Circuit Court judges serve on the orphans' court and repeal the county's current elections for three judgeships on the orphans' court.

The exact wording of each ballot question is listed here. A non-technical summary of each question is available on this webpage.

Several jurisdictions also have local ballot questions. Anne Arundel's referendums seek to amend the county charter to:

  • Require the Anne Arundel County Veterans Affairs Commission.
  • Provide that no person elected or appointed to the office of County Councilmember may serve more than three full consecutive four-year terms.
  • Require that the compensation paid to each member of the County Council be paid after consideration of recommendations of the Salary Standard Commission that are approved by ordinance of the County Council.
  • Remove the requirement that copies of bills and notices of public hearings be posted on a bulletin board and to require that electronic copies of bills and notice of any public hearing be published to the County Council website and that printed copies of bills be made available to the public and press and that bills receive required publication.
  • Clarify the differences between the two types of emergency ordinances allowed under the Charter and the legislative procedure that applies to each.
  • Allow the County Council to assign additional functions, duties, and personnel to the County Auditor that are related to the finances and financial affairs of the County.
  • Change the name of the Charter Revision Commission to the Redistricting and Charter Revision Commission and to amend the date by which a decennial Redistricting and Charter Revision Commission must be appointed by the County Council.
  • Be gender neutral consistent with changes recommended based on a review by the County Attorney.

All these state and county ballot questions will pass if they collect a plurality of votes. That means they just need to secure more yes's than no's.

The Howard County court question needs a plurality of votes statewide and a plurality in Howard County specifically to pass.

When Will The Results Be Certified?

Media outlets may project winners on election night based on large leads, but election officials will not certify the final results for at least 10 days. Officials must wait for every mail-in and provisional ballot to trickle in.

Soon after polls close on Nov. 8, the Maryland State Board of Elections will release the jurisdiction-specific tallies from in-person early voting and mail-in ballots counted up to Election Day.

Officials will then start releasing the in-person Election Day vote counts within a few hours of polls closing.

All 24 jurisdictions will start releasing their early voting and Election Day tallies on Nov. 8. That evening, only 10 jurisdictions will release their early mail-in ballot results tallied before Election Day.

The Maryland Court of Appeals on Oct. 7 ruled that local election offices can opt to start counting mail-in ballots before Election Day. They cannot release these results until after polls close on Election Day, however. Jurisdictions counting early must continue accepting mailed ballots postmarked by Nov. 8 until the statewide deadline of Nov. 18 at 10 a.m.

Related: Maryland's Highest Court Upholds Order Allowing Early Counting Of Mail-In Ballots

These jurisdictions plan to conduct pre-Election Day canvassing of mail-in ballots: Baltimore City and Allegany, Baltimore, Calvert, Frederick, Howard, Montgomery, Prince George's, Saint Mary's and Washington counties.

Fourteen jurisdictions do not have the space or personnel to count early mail-in ballots as they arrive.

These counties will start canvassing their mail-in ballots on Nov. 10, which is two days after Election Day: Anne Arundel, Caroline, Carroll, Cecil, Charles, Dorchester, Garrett, Harford, Kent, Queen Anne's, Somerset, Talbot, Wicomico and Worcester counties.

"We appreciate the diligence of the local boards in assessing the most appropriate canvassing approach for their individual teams and always placing the integrity of the election process above all else to ensure the will of Maryland voters is heard through their votes," Maryland State Board of Elections Administrator Linda H. Lamone said in a press release.

Election officials will tally provisional ballots on Nov. 16. Mail-in ballots will be counted as they arrive until Nov. 18.

Local boards cannot certify their final results before Nov. 18.

Related: Maryland's Highest Court Upholds Order Allowing Early Counting Of Mail-In Ballots

Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

Related:Maryland Election 2022

More from Annapolis