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The most active thread yesterday was titled, "BOE - who are people voting for?" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. There have been a number of threads about the upcoming Montgomery County Board of Education election. An earlier thread discussed which candidates were entering and what posters thought of them. Another thread focused on one of those candidates, Bethany Mandel. This thread takes off where the first one leaves off. Now that the slate of candidates has been settled, the original poster wants to know for whom others are voting and why they are making those choices. This is a rather long thread, as have been the previous ones. As a result, I haven't been able to read the complete threads. That has left me a bit confused about a couple of points which may or may not have been explained in the threads. For instance, on May 14 a primary election will be held and voters will be able to choose one At-Large candidate, one candidate for District 2, and one candidate for District 4. All voters will be able to vote in all three races. To me, this seems like three At-Large races because despite being a representative of a specific district, those board members will be accountable to the entire county, not just voters in their district. Similarly, while this is a "primary" election, it is non-partisan. As far as I know, only one winner in each race will be selected. Therefore, the November general election will not be a run-off, but simply a race between the primary winner and any candidates that enter the general election. Since this is a non-partisan election and there is not a run-off, I really don't see the reason for having a primary. Perhaps someone can enlighten me in the comments? As for the candidates, there is a fairly large number. The At-Large contest has six candidates and District 2 has five. District 4 has a relatively paltry three candidates. One thing this thread has done well is help group the candidates according to various factors. For instance, each race has an incumbent who basically represents the status quo. Each race also has an "Apple Ballot" candidate who is endorsed by the the Montgomery County Education Association. Finally, each race has one or more "outsider" candidates who is essentially a bomb-thrower that wants to shake things up. One of the biggest disputes in the thread is over whether, despite a seemingly widespread desire for change, the outsider candidates would be actually be effective at bringing about reform or would instead simply be disruptive and interfere with any actual work being done. Two of the candidates homeschool their children, raising questions about why they would strive for leadership of a school system they have rejected. I assume that we can look forward to approximately another month of this thread being active and then on to the general election.