Every vote must count in this election. While legal challenges remain an option, past elections demonstrate that court battles offer no guarantees, especially given the current composition of the Supreme Court. We have a responsibility to take every measure possible to maximize voter turnout.
To that end, I have contacted the Talbot Democratic Party Headquarters to propose an immediate information campaign. We need to begin recruiting volunteers to canvass the community, identify those who need assistance getting to the polls, and coordinate transportation for them.
I have already volunteered my time toward this effort through the Talbot Democratic Party website. I hope readers will see the vital importance of this initiative and join in serving our community at this critical moment for our democracy.
James Siegman
Talbot County
14 Responses
Thank you so much putting this opinion piece out there. I fully support your initiative.
Essentially, MAGA is trying to work the referee and dicker with the rule book. In other words, they are engaging in voter suppression tactics. Indeed, Talbot’s own Team MAGA has sought to question the integrity of the voter rolls. The Town of Easton hosted a pointless debate about voter ID, despite evidence of a problem or understanding how a town could or had the wherewithal to adjudicate citizenship. Nationally, ballot drop boxes have been come in for undue scrutiny, and the Trump Administration is plowing ahead, despite court rulings to the contrary, with plans to interfere with mail-in ballots.
The intended impacts of these efforts? Fear, confusion, and uncertainty. Here in Talbot I have heard from several residents that they fear violence on Election Day. Take that in for a second: they fear going to the polls. Others have expressed confusion whether absentee ballots and early voting will be counted properly. STill others are uncertain if their ballots will arrive on time if mailed.
It is ever more important this year to educate voters on how to vote, arm them with multiple strategies to obtain their ballot and submit in the most assured manner possible, and bolster those who fear, are confused about or uncertain regarding how best to cast their vote.
The silence from the Republicans is deafening. They are in on the fix, they are weaker than they have been in a generation, and they want to restrict the exercise of the franchise.
Remember to take your mail in ballot TO THE SECURE BALLOT box at the Board of Elections – your vote is too important to trust to the mail system!
Brian, thank you for bringing this to our attention
That is the truth. I will always vote in person if possible. I don’t even trust that the secure box won’t be tampered with. Early voting is very helpful, try to go in person. If anyone tries to intimidate you, call the police immediately.
It was interesting to see the response I got on Nextdoor from a local Republican official. Basically I posted a similar message as I did here to a “Pasta” talk add that they put up…I wanted the specific individual to see it and encouraged republicans to join in on getting out the vote as well. The individual was displeased that I had put “that garbage” on their Nextdoor ad for a political fundraiser/dinner talk. I get perhaps that might be rude of me to insert my idea there but after all, it was a public forum and did not seem terribly out of line….but the subject matter SHOULD be something every American would support. ….Telling
Trump has announced for months that he intends to suppress the rights of voters. His whole cabinet is dedicated to that effort. Republicans in Congress have called for ICE troops to be sent to every voting site in America. Our own Andy Harris supports the so-called SAVE AMERICA act that is intended to restrict voting rights. Republicans in states, especially Texas, are working to make it harder for people to vote. Republican candidates for the Talbot County Council all signed pledges to a right-wing hate group – Moms for Liberty. This hate group has NOTHING to do with their responsibilities if they get elected to the Council. The only practical purpose it serves is a demonstration of loyalty to Trump. Not loyalty to the United States. At some point Trump and his MAGA stooges are bound to ask for every Republican in the country to disrupt voting. Just like he did in 2021. I hope our local our local officials do no feel the need to act on Washington’s orders.
As noted above, every voter in our County ought to pay attention to what is happening to their ballots so the Post Office, or other US agencies, don’t throw them away.
Maryland Voter Roll Violations & Over-Registration Warning
SecureTheVoteMD.com | 2025 Analysis
Under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), states are required to maintain accurate and up-to-date voter registration lists. Yet, data from Maryland shows clear violations, with inflated rolls and active registrants exceeding the eligible population in some counties.
Maryland Voter Roll Inflation vs. National Average
This handout highlights Maryland counties where active voter registrations exceed reasonable expectations when compared to the national average registration rate of 75.60%. Several counties are registering over 90%, with some exceeding 100% of eligible voters, signaling a failure to maintain accurate voter rolls in accordance with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
Talbot County Data
29,726 eligible voters
30,758 registered voters
103.47% Percent registered eligible
28,399 ACTIVE registered
95.54% Percent Active Registered Eligible
75.60% National Average
If you want to see the entire chart, contact me.
So, you’re not a data person, I get it.
What you have presented is a snapshot of a moment in time. Reason for concern? Perhaps. Cause for alarm? No. Names are constantly coming on and off the voter rolls — people reach voting age, get or renew their drivers license, move into the state, etc or they die, move away, change addresses, etc. — so the numbers you presented are insufficient to level the accusations that you. The real question should be: are people showing up at polling stations in Talbot who are not permitted to vote?
Frankly, it’s political malpractice to engage in this kind of gaslighting. Let the election officials do their job and stay out of their way. Working the refs and frivolously litigating the rule book are counterproductive over the medium- to long-term. Ultimately, this work the refs strategy is one rooted in political weakness and insecurity, not strength and confidence. Voters will know the difference. Losers pursue the path you’re on.
By all means, if you have a case of actual voter fraud, take it to the authorities and bring receipts. That cannot be tolerated and should be punished. If all you have is innuendo and propaganda, well, take a seat, think about what you’re doing, and come back with you have something real.
This is the ongoing game of half truths that is being played, not just nationally but right here in little ol’ Talbot County. I have challenged these numbers with this person previously and never us the whole truth acknowledged because it undermines their ability to manufacture anger. I am exhausted from 10years of anger. Tired of things being “torn down” when in this country, with all the blessings we have….we should be holding each other up and building.
Data without context is a riddle without an answer. This week Mrs. Wilcoxon is two for two. Her latest, on Talbot County voter rolls, deserves the context she left out. As Mrs. Wilcoxon’s counterpart, the Chair of the Talbot County Democratic Central Committee, I looked it up.
The post’s own numbers show active voters are below the eligible estimate. 28,399 active against 29,726 eligible is 95.5%. The 103% figure only appears when you add inactive registrations, and federal law requires those to stay on the list. Under the National Voter Registration Act, a voter who does not respond to a mailed notice is marked inactive and can be removed only after two federal general elections pass with no activity. Talbot’s roughly 1,800 inactive records are the law working as written.
The 75.6% benchmark is the wrong yardstick. The RNC’s own lawsuit identifies it as a 2022 Census household survey estimate. Survey rates run consistently below actual roll counts. The federal Election Assistance Commission, counting the rolls themselves, puts the national active registration rate at 86.6% of citizen voting-age population. Talbot’s 95% is high but not extraordinary for a county where 30.6% of residents are 65 or older, versus 18% nationally. Older, settled populations register at very high rates. In 2024, Alaska was the only state whose active records exceeded the Census estimate of eligible citizens.
The “eligible voters” number is itself an estimate, a five-year Census survey figure with a published margin of error, not a count.
Maryland does the maintenance the law requires. It is a member of ERIC, receives monthly death records and daily out-of-state registration notices, and removed 19,756 registrations statewide in March 2026 alone. A 2023 state audit found room for improvement on deceased registrants; the state reported that 99.38% of deceased voters had been removed and about 268 duplicates existed among 4.1 million records, and it agreed to tighten procedures.
The NVRA sets no maximum registration ratio. A percentage on a handout is not a finding of a violation. And the people behind the handout have court-confirmed access to the full voter list. If ineligible voters are on Talbot’s rolls, they can name them. A ratio is not a name.
Here is why the missing context matters. A claim that Talbot has more voters than citizens does not stay a statistic. It tells people the rolls are padded, that the staff at our Board of Elections are either careless or complicit, and that whatever happens in November should not be trusted. None of that follows from the numbers above. The people who run our elections are our neighbors. They work under federal and state law, and they are being asked to hold this election while being told, without evidence, that they are failing at it. Around the country, exactly this kind of claim has turned into threats against election workers and voters who stay home because they were told their ballot would be diluted. That is the cost of leaving the context out, and it is why the Chair of a county party should not do it.
We are weeks from an election. Voters deserve numbers with context. When it is missing, I will supply it.
Phil Jackson
Chair, TalbotDems (www.talbotdems.org)
Mr. Jackson seems to pay no attention to the fact that Maryland has mail in ballots with no voter ID required.
With this in mind these padded numbers on our voter rolls , no matter how he wants to spin them , should be red flag to anyone who really cares about voter integrity and honesty. The vast majority of these mail in ballots seem to always come in as democrat votes just in time to edge out an election.
And stating what the law “says” reminds me of what the law “says” about Election Judge parity!
Something tells me that if these mail in ballot votes came in consistently heavily Republican our local dems would be screaming for transparency and honest elections
Gary, Maryland does allow mail-in voting without requiring voters to send a photo ID with the ballot, and Democrats use mail voting far more than Republicans. But voters still must be registered and their identity is checked when requesting a ballot.
Most importantly, neither a high voter-registration count nor heavily Democratic mail-in results is, by itself, evidence that voter rolls are “padded” or that fraudulent ballots are being used to change elections.
Thanks for adding the very explicit and NECESSARY context. I was quite willing to allow that the one sided reporting was simply mistaken. I try to live by the adage that we should not attribute as malice when incompetence would better explain. But in the last year or so, it has become clear to me that incompetence occasionally gets things right (by accident)….but the sheer volume and interconnectedness of things going wrong can no longer be assumed to be incompetence and that it is nearly impossible to be anything other than by malice.
Beautifully said! Ms. Wilcoxon loves to pull numbers and ‘facts’ out of her girdle. The MAGA Trump/ Harris, Moms for Liberty lemonade guzzlers want to create fear and havoc in our local and national elections. Why? Because they are going to lose BIG! Then… buckle your seatbelts, MAGGOTS.
Ms. Jefferson, lest we forget, the Trump/Republican Party isn’t just trying to create election trauma; they’re also trying to create Board of Education trauma in the Public Schools. You’ve likely already noted in Ms. Wilcoxon’s recent School Board diatribe, she has declared that the board has failed, except I suppose, for the Moms for Liberty Republicans who are presently on the Board.
In her recent diatribe, I looked for the solutions Ms. Wilcoxon proposes, or which proposals her fellow Republican cohorts have already offered. Not surprisingly, nothing approached even one solitary proposal other than replacing Ms. Jackson and Ms. Dodson. This suggests the real objective for Ms. Wilcoxon, her cohorts, and the Talbot County Republican Party/Moms For Liberty contingent is to take over the Board and start tearing up the edifice of public education locally, as other MFL groups are trying to accomplish statewide. If this county is following state Board of Education rules/guidelines on test scoring, that’s another opportunity to break down the program. Sounds like they want to cut back on the faculty support system, faculty, and change the top leadership here and statewide. And nationwide. Why do you suppose Trump gutted the US Department of Education? Same story, different page.
The Moms group claims they want a voice. No, they already have voices. They want control. They want to control the entire operation and wreak havoc as widely as they can here and statewide. This is a reflection of the entire Republican Party. They want to control what YOUR children read and what YOUR children are taught in public schools. The teachers themselves, through their union, do not support this takeover. The Moms members and leadership have no particular educational or moral leadership distinction over the remainder of Talbot County society (or any other society).
Moms for Liberty Pledge: “I pledge to honor the fundamental rights of parents including, but not limited to the right to direct the education, medical care, and moral upbringing of their children. I pledge to advance policies that strengthen parental involvement and decision-making, increase transparency, defend against government overreach, and secure parental rights at all levels of government.” This is doubletalk. All parents can direct the education of their children but within the framework of the public schools system. They can certainly make decisions regarding their children’s medical care so long as the children receive required health precautions for their own protection and the protection of their fellow students. “Moral upbringing”? Republicans support Trump (and numerous of his cronies) covering up full release of the Epstein Files, very likely because Trump himself and many of them are deeply implicated. What Talbot County Republican that you know of has publicly demanded full Epstein Files release? And they want to impose Trump morality of the rest of the county? Republican morality is on life support. Please, Ms. Wilcoxson, tell your story walking.
We all know public education is a long, difficult job for everyone involved. We are making progress. Its never fast enough. This is no time to allow a radical fringe group like Moms for Liberty to blow up the public school system.