Lower Merion voters have never seen anything that was quite like the postcard (above) that showed up in their mailboxes recently, courtesy of the Democratic Committee of Lower Merion Narberth (DCLMN).
The postcard correctly notes that allowing candidates to cross-file in the May 18 School Board Primary can lead to confusion. And to their credit, the Democratic Committee did as good of a job as could be done, as far as simplifying what otherwise might have seemed very puzzling, even to many of this community’s highly educated voters.
In past years, the Committee’s sample ballots would simply list the names of all their endorsed candidates, and not even mention the names of the other candidates, regardless of whether they were unendorsed Democrats or Republicans. But at this year’s endorsement meeting on March 9, to the chagrin of leadership and many of its members, the Committee only endorsed three candidates for School Board, even though the voters will be able to vote for and elect four candidates.
Every two years, there is a debate at the endorsement meeting between a small group of members (this small group is actually getting less small) who would prefer to have “Open Primaries” (no endorsements), and members who promise disastrous consequences if the Committee does not endorse a full slate of candidates.
What they mean by disastrous consequences, is that a Republican, perhaps even a Republican who organized bus transportation to the January 6 Riot/Rally in Washington, D.C., could cross-file and win the Democratic School Board Primary.
To their credit, Committee Leadership, facing the very scenario that they warned could lead to a terrible outcome, figured out and implemented a work-around that will prevent such a disaster, even though the Committee failed to endorse a full slate of candidates.
Disclosure – The author of this article is a member of DCLMN