October 7, 2023: I’ve been informed by a candidate for council that their voting record reported in this post is inaccurate. This information is this post is based on data provided by Montgomery County and the City of Rockville, so I am in the process of requesting further information from them to determine the source of the errors. My apologies to candidates affected by this blog post but I encourage all voters to ask about a candidate’s voting record to ensure they actively participate in our civic life and to ask the City of Rockville about the process for ensuring the accuracy of the voter database. More details at A Week of Surprises on Rockville’s Campaign Trail.

To run for a seat on the Mayor and Council, candidates must be 18 years old, a registered voter, and have lived in Rockville for at least one year prior to the election (that’s Nov. 7, 2022 for the current race). While you might be a registered voter, that doesn’t mean you vote. Indeed, in a review of voter records from Montgomery County and the City of Rockville shows that three candidates for City Council did not vote in the most recent 2019 City Council election: Danniel Belay, Ricky Mui, and Adam Van Grack. Perhaps they moved into Rockville after 2019, were sick, or out of town (although vote-by-mail was available), but it did make me wonder about the voting record of the other candidates. If you want to lead our little part of democracy, how active have you been in our democratic process? If you’re trying to convince people to vote, how convinced are you about the importance of voting?

Going back to the 2010 elections (I don’t have records for 2020 and 2022), four candidates voted in every election: Mark Pierzchala, Richard Gottfried, Anita Powell, and Marissa Valeri. That’s a 100% voting record. Voting less than half the time (50%) are Daniel Belay, Kate Fulton, Ricky Mui, Paul Scott, and Adam Van Grack. That doesn’t mean they should be automatically dismissed, but they should provide an explanation to voters (why should I vote for you when you didn’t vote most of the time?). The remaining field has a mixed record, although their voting record improved over time.

To see their voting records of the candidates at a glance, see the chart below. Green means they voted, red they didn’t vote, and yellow or ? is unknown. The date they registered to vote is important for evaluating their records—how long has the candidate been part of the democratic process? For example, Anita Powell has the longest record for Rockville, being a registered voter since 1975. On the other hand, Danniel Belay didn’t register until 2014 (I suspect he was under 18 until then), so he didn’t vote until 2014. Again, I don’t have records for 2020 and 2022 (the Montgomery County Board of Elections sells the list at a cost of a couple of hundred dollars), but the patterns are pretty clear from the data I have available.