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After 25 years aiding elections, Burch leaves balloting behind
2010 to bring changes in voting
Friday, Oct. 2, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by REID SILVERMAN
Eleanor Quade Clarkson of Bushwood wishes longtime friend Brenda Burch, right, best wishes Wednesday as Burch retires as supervisor of the board of elections.
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Brenda Burch's last day was Wednesday. After a brush with cancer and aware of the challenges ahead in the 2010 election, she decided now was the time to bow out.
She was the supervisor of the St. Mary's County Board of Elections since 2007, and worked in the office since July 1985.
Next year's election is sure to be lively. All county commissioner seats are up for election, plus school board and state lawmaker seats. Compounding that is yet another new system of voting machines to be used in 2010. Estimated to cost the state another $20 million, the new optical scan voting machines will actually produce a paper receipt for a voter, but the new system hasn't been certified yet. The old touch-screen voting machines, which cost the state $60 million, couldn't produce paper receipts, but will still be used for the disabled to vote next year.
There are also new rules pending for early voting in the state. "It's too many changes," Burch said Tuesday. "The last election was good. That was my plan, to go out while the getting's good," she said.
Though she only oversaw the 2008 election as supervisor, she said of her retirement, "I'm not looking at two years, I'm heading to 25." Burch began at the board of elections as the Democratic registrar, a position with a Republican counterpart, when Irene Dixon was the elections supervisor. Then Catherine Countiss took the job in 1988. She retired in 2007.
"A director's as good as their employees. I've had good support from my employees," Burch said. She added that she "thoroughly enjoyed working for St. Mary's County voters."
At a get-together for Burch on Wednesday at the board of elections, she said, "I'm on countdown time."
Commissioner Thomas A. Mattingly Sr. (D) joked to her, "You just don't want to go through another set of voting machines do you? I don't know how they're going to pay for them."
Linda Knott worked with Burch for 15 years in the elections office. She recalled the late nights counting absentee ballots and working at the county fairs to register voters with her. Knott said, "She is a very easy person to work with."
Susan Julian is now acting supervisor. The local board of elections will interview applicants for the job and make a selection.
Now that Burch is retired, she said, "I want to go home and have no schedule," to "enjoy grandbabies and not have to punch a time clock."
