Municipal Elections in Frederick County

The Frederick City Primary election is now in the ballot counting stage. You can find updated results at https://www.cityoffrederickmd.gov/1865/2025-Election-News-and-Results. The results at this point, the day after the elction, includes ONLY the final results for the Republicans, all of whom advance to the General election because there were no opponents to warrant a primary election for them, and only those votes of people who voted in person, all 783 of us, and including counted mail-in and drop box ballots a total of 3,819. There are more votes to be counted, but that out of a total of 29,631 registered voters in Frederick City.

The Board of Supervisors of Elections convened on Thursday, September 11, 2025 at 9:00 AM in Conference Room C at the Municipal Annex, 140 West Patrick Street, Frederick, MD 21701 to begin canvassing of ballots received by mail or drop box, as well as review of provisional ballots. The canvass will continue from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM each business day following until all ballot tabulation is completed. This process will be open to the public. And you can watch the canvassing of the ballots on YouTube, go to https://www.youtube.com/@CityofFrederickMaryland, where, with a lot of searching, you can watch the vote counting as it happened, and Live! Beow see the links to each day of vote counting.

Primary Election 2025 Canvassing, Day 1 - Part 1

Primary Election 2025 Canvassing, Day 1 - Part 2

Primary Election 2025 Canvassing - Day 2

Forums:

• Monday, August 11, 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm, District 3 candidates: Peter Brehm, David Schmidt. We secured ASL interpreters for the event. The video for this event can be viewed at https://youtu.be/71dkSFpplws.
• Wednesday, August 13, 3:00 pm - 3:30 pm, District 1 candidate: Katie Nash. On YouTube at https://youtube.com/live/MUoCS9vwGHk.
• Wednesday, August 13, 4:00 pm - 4:30 pm, District 2 candidate: Cesar Diaz. On YouTube at https://youtube.com/live/5dOvhEiA3DE.
• Thursday, August 14, 6:00 p.m. - 7:00 pm, District 4 candidates: Fredy Ventura Garcia, S. Scott Lasher. On YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/live/NuGkvy-8ykk?si=krKKoBzuvsZtJevi. 
• Friday, August 15, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 pm, At Large candidates: Jennifer Dougherty, Donna Kuzemchak, Kelly Russell, Libby Taylor, Derek Shackelford. We secured ASL interpreters for the event. Unfortunately, we had significant internet problems for this forum, so the beginning 5 minutes are lost, and the sound and video is pretty scratchy. But this is over 50 minutes of answers from the candidates. You can view the event on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/live/k7C_q36fdzw?si=t0ayDLUdUhg_M13K.
• Tuesday, August 19, 6:00 p.m. - 7:00 pm, District 5 candidates: Sarah Hempel Irani, Ryan Trout. On You Tube at https://www.youtube.com/live/nZep4lMsvP8?si=xtslAsc1lqSCximn.
• Wednesday, August 27, 7:00 p.m. - 8:00 pm, Mayoral candidates: Ronald A. Beattie, Michael O'Connor. We secured ASL interpreters for the event. You can view the event live at https://www.youtube.com/live/5oJVt3hRu4Q?si=giuWoKqOx-wGwcKg.

In Primary Elections only Democrats vote for Democratic candidates, only Republicans vote for Republican candidates. We do not usually run a forum for a single candidate running in a primary - they are going to win that election, and will then run in the general election where everyone votes for one of the candidates running for that particular set.

Because this is the first City Council election involving Districts, we ran "meet the candidate" events in those primary races where there was only one person running on the ballot. All of the candidates have had good press, many have had opportunities with other organizations, and there have been conflicts in scheduling. If you are interested in a candidate not participating in a forum, be sure to reach out to them and ask questions directly.  

There are other elections happening soon, see the table below. The town links below will take you to the city websites where you can find information about how to register, how to run as a candidate, how and where to vote, etc. We will be breaking this up by city on new webpages under Election Processes, but that will take a little more time to create. 

Look for Frederick City Election Districts at https://www.cityoffrederickmd.gov/1805/District-Maps. Use the scroll bars at the bottom and right of the window to move around the document. It is unwieldy!

Outcomes of city elections of 2025 that have been completed:

Brunswick – August 2026 results https://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/politics_and_government/elections/one-incumbent-two-first-timers-win-brunswick-city-council-seats/article_fcf01ce6-4026-548f-8538-f4159d6faa4b.html

Burkittsville – June 2025 results https://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/politics_and_government/elections/burkittsville-elects-two-newcomers-to-town-council-new-mayor-wins-unopposed/article_7ce4c427-c70e-5188-ac9c-038d8f45db6c.html.

Mount Airy: https://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/continuing_coverage/election_coverage/hushour-reelected-mayor-of-mount-airy-domotor-kelly-win-town-council-seats/article_d92a7284-632c-5025-b404-c007b4b93e97.html.

New Market – Primary April 28, 2025, General May 13, 2025. Results https://www.townofnewmarket.org/home/news/2025-election-results.  

Rosemont – Saturday May 3, 2025. Results https://sites.google.com/site/rosemontmd/home.

Woodsboro – May 10, 2025, 8:00 am – 2:00 pm. Results https://www.yahoo.com/news/woodsboro-counts-votes-invalidated-recent-035900313.html.

Remaining elections:

(Note: Dates are subject to change. Information is current as of 7/14/2025.)