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The Maryland Board of Public Works voted to approve a statewide measure Wednesday morning to renew a service contract with election service provider Saber Governmental Solutions through Dec. 31, 2009.

Despite the vote, Frederick officials are still trying to determine who will run Frederick's 2009 municipal elections.

Frederick's elections have been run by the Frederick County Board of Elections for many years. But on Dec. 4, Mark P. Jeffers Jr., president of the county Board of Elections, sent a letter to Frederick's mayor and Board of Aldermen stating that the board had unanimously voted the previous day not to conduct the city's 2009 elections.

The Board of Elections justified its decision in the letter by saying it believes the city has "sufficient personnel to conduct [its] municipal elections under the supervision of the city's Board of Supervisors of Elections," and that it is "uncertain as to what voting systems, if any, will be available for our use in Maryland in 2009, thus making it impossible to enter into a contract with the city."

It is unclear how the Wednesday Board of Public Works decision will impact the stance of the Board of Supervisors of Elections in regard to the city's elections.

The Board of Public Works measure directs Saber "to include support to State Board of Elections in implementing requirements of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, except for those relating to voter registration implementation and support."

The areas in which the company would lend support include the procurement and implementation of a new voting system by Jan. 1, 2010, establishing various statewide ballot protocols, Election Day support and quality assurance and control.

The measure did not include a request for any funding. However, the estimated cost to be paid to Saber next year under the renewed contract is $578,800. There was no requested funding because the board approved nearly $2.26 million more funding for the first three years of the contract with Saber than was used, meaning there is already dedicated funding for this contract renewal.

Frederick Mayor W. Jeff Holtzinger (R) said Tuesday he was hopeful that a solution could be reached when he meets with Frederick County Board of Elections Director Stuart Harvey sometime this week. As of Tuesday afternoon, he said he did not know when they would meet.

"That will be awfully hard for us to pull that off, what with the primary elections nine months away," he said, referring to the city running its own 2009 elections. "But what I'm hoping will happen is maybe we'll be able to secure the voting machines … My hope is we will be able to work out whatever the problem is with the county election board and they'll still administer the election. Maybe we can say it's OK to use the type of voting machine you have under contract now even though they may not be able to be used in 2010."

A state law mandating the use of voting machines with paper trails will go into effect in 2010; until then touch-screen models used in the county for the 2008 election are still legal.

Holtzinger said the city has a good relationship with Harvey and Board of Elections members and that he will not allow their recent decision — and their failure to warn city officials ahead of time that they would consider such a move — to negatively affect his approach to the conversation with the board, saying that he did not "think they would have done this on a whim."

But he added that if the city ends up having to run the Sept. 15 primary and Nov. 3 elections, it could be very difficult to pull off.

"But maybe I'm wrong and this is going to be a huge nightmare, because it would be a real scramble fro us to be able to do that. We don't have experience administering elections and we don't have the staff to do that," Holtzinger said. "You can imagine how disorganized — even with the best efforts — how disorganized it would be to administer the election with no experience doing that."

Neither Harvey nor state elections administrator Linda Lamone could be reached for comment before The Gazette's press time Wednesday.