Protect Maryland Voting Rights! End Vote Dilution! – Pass SB 255/HB 350

The message:

There is no law in Maryland that specifically addresses racial discrimination in local elections. As related federal protections are under attack, SB 255 and HB 350 protects Black, Brown and other communities of color from being silenced in the electoral process. It establishes a clear, accessible legal pathway to challenge vote dilution in local county and municipal elections, so that everyone can have a fair chance to elect their preferred candidates whenever they go to vote.

Based on decades of work with impacted local communities, the language in SB 255 and HB 350 has been specifically tailored to give Marylanders the best tools to fix unfair district maps and other discriminatory election systems. This is critical legislation for our state.

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Your State Senator and Representative

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Subject End voter discrimination. Pass a clean vote dilution bill SB255/HB350!

Vote dilution happens when an election system or other policies deny voters of color an equal opportunity to elect candidates they support. This means voters of color can cast ballots, but their votes don't have equal power to elect candidates the community supports.

Right now, there is no law in Maryland that addresses racial discrimination in local elections. Since 2022, legal experts and advocates have been working with state leaders to fix this with a bill that reflects decades of work with impacted local communities. The primary result is SB 255/HB 350, with language specifically tailored to get at the heart of vote dilution by providing an efficient way to challenge it when it happens in local counties, towns, and cities. Maryland needs this.

Message Body

As a Maryland resident and your constituent, we must put an end to all vote dilution happening in the state. Anything in Maryland that limits equal voting power and fair access to the ballot must be stopped.

You don't have to be an expert on vote dilution to know that it can happen even if a town or county does not intend to discriminate. It can and does occur in numerous places, including those with unfair district maps and at-large election systems that deny people of color a fair vote. And you don't need to be an expert to know that this is wrong.

This often happens when unfair district maps "pack" and "crack" communities of color by squeezing them into a small number of districts that don’t match their share of the overall population. The rest are then split up among the other districts so that they'll never have enough votes to elect the candidates they prefer there. As a result, the community's preferred representative, which they can generally only elect in the "packed" district, will be consistently outnumbered by those elected in the majority of districts who don’t represent the community's interests.

And when it comes to an at-large system, all voters in a county, town, or city are represented by the same official or officials – unlike a district system where different officials represent smaller sections of the population. These at-large systems can lead to vote dilution because only a slim majority of the entire population is needed to win. Even if voters of color make up a significant part a community, this system shuts down their power to choose their representatives. We've recently dealt with it in Wicomico County and the town of Federalsburg and continue to see other communities across the state still facing the same problem.

As voting rights continue to be attacked at the federal level, the least Maryland and its leaders can do is make sure that my neighbors and I remain protected. This means protecting my right to cast my vote freely and have it count equally toward electing local leaders whose decisions deeply impact my life and community.

I urge you to please protect all Marylanders from racial discrimination in local elections. We are better than this, and we can prove it by passing this legislation. I ask, as your constituent, to please pass SB 255 and HB 350 as clean bills.

Sincerely,

[First Name] [Last Name]

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Protect Maryland Voting Rights! End Vote Dilution! – Pass SB 255/HB 350

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