Kent County Election Board Violated Open Meetings Act for Delayed Disclosure of Previous Open Meetings Violation

According to the Maryland Open Meetings Compliance Board, the Kent County Board of Elections violated Maryland’s Open Meetings Act on two separate occasions, potentially limiting timely public access to official records and accountability measures. The infractions involved failing to post required meeting minutes and delaying mandated disclosures after the first violation was identified.

The first violation, issued on May 16, 2025, involved the Board’s failure to post minutes from several 2024 meetings online. While the Board said it typically relies on a third-party webmaster to upload documents, it admitted that minutes from February and March 2024 were never even submitted for posting by staff. This oversight was deemed a breach of § 3-306(e)(2) of the Open Meetings Act, which requires that meeting minutes be made publicly available online “to the extent practicable.” The Compliance Board found it was indeed practicable at the time, as other minutes had been posted for that same period.

Following this initial finding, the Board was legally required to take corrective actions under § 3-211(b) of the Act. These included announcing the violation and summarizing the opinion at the next open meeting, and returning a signed copy of the opinion to the Compliance Board. A second complaint was filed, asserting the Board failed to meet both requirements.

On May 22, 2025, the Board held a special open meeting but chose to delay its announcement of the violation until its next regular meeting on June 5, 2025. The Compliance Board found this violated § 3-211(b)(1), emphasizing that the law requires disclosure at the “next open meeting,” not the one expected to draw the largest audience. In addition, although the Act does not require the signing of the opinion at the meeting itself, the Compliance Board ruled that the Board’s nearly six-week delay in returning the signed opinion—only received on June 25—did not satisfy the requirement to act “as soon as practicable.”

These findings underscore the importance of procedural transparency for public bodies and may prompt increased scrutiny of how local agencies in Kent County and beyond comply with open meeting requirements.

Article by multiple contributors, based upon information from the Maryland Open Meetings Compliance Board rulings on May 16, 2025 and July 25, 2025.

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