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REPORTED IN THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS OF MARYLAND

No. 503 September Term, 2010

HOWARD COUNTY CITIZENS FOR OPEN GOVERNMENT, ET AL. v. HOWARD COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS

Meredith, Matricciani, Kehoe,

JJ.

Opinion by Kehoe, J.

Filed: October 27, 2011

In their County Charter, the voters of Howard County have reserved to themselves the right to right to refer laws of their County Council to referendum. For a referendum question to secure a place on the ballot, petitions containing the signatures of at least 5,000 of the County's registered voters must be filed within sixty days of the passage of the ordinance in question. The filing deadline may be extended for an additional thirty days if the sponsor of the referendum effort submits petitions containing at least 50% of the required signatures within the initial deadline. Howard County Citizens for Open Government ("HCCOG") sought to take a newly-enacted ordinance of the Howard County Council to referendum. The Howard County Board of Elections (the "Board") decided that HCCOG failed to submit petitions containing a sufficient number of valid signatures to extend the filing deadline. HCCOG, and others,1 sought judicial review of the Board's decision. The Circuit Court for Howard County affirmed the Board. HCCOG has appealed the court's judgment and presents the following questions, which we have reworded slightly: I. Whether the decision of the Board to invalidate previously approved registered voters on a referendum petition impermissibly burdened the citizens of Howard County in the exercise of rights secured by the Howard County Charter, State law and the Maryland Constitution? Whether the Board's retroactive application of the Doe v. Montgomery County, 406 Md. 697 (2008), voter verification standards was unreasonable; or, in the alternative, whether the Doe standards themselves, as applied by the Board, and in light of

II.

The other appellants are Marc. E. Norman and Angela M. Bertram, who are registered voters in Howard County. For convenience, we will refer to the appellants as "HCCOG."

1

Montgomery County Volunteer Fire Rescue Assoc. v. Montgomery County Board of Elections, 418 Md. 463 (2011), impermissibly burdened the citizens of Howard County in the exercise of rights guaranteed by the Maryland Constitution and the Howard County Charter?2 III. Whether the decision of the Board to invalidate previously qualified registered voters on a referendum petition was unreasonable?

We affirm the judgment of the circuit court and, accordingly, the decision of the Board.
BACKGROUND

On November 3, 2008, the Howard County Council passed Council Bill 58-2008, amending the Howard County Zoning Regulations to increase the maximum permitted size of a grocery store to be built in the Turf Valley community. HCCOG sponsored a petition drive to submit the bill to referendum, pursuant to HOWARD COUNTY, MD. CHARTER

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