Opinion | Three strikes for newly elected Montgomery County Commissioners Neil Makhija and Jamila Winder

Curiously, prior to a campaign stop by President Joe Biden in Montgomery County, Montgomery County released a press release with the headline “As President Biden Visits Montco, Commissioners Reaffirm Commitment to Every Citizen’s Right to Vote.” It is important to reiterate that Biden’s visit was as a candidate, not the President.

If you actually take the time to read the press release, you will see that two of the three county commissioners, Neil Makhija (D) and Jamila Winder (D), were quoted in the press release. Left out, was Tom DiBello, the lone Republican commissioner. According to DiBello, he wasn’t asked to contribute to the press release.

If Makhija and Winder aren’t aware, the county’s system of government is setup to guarantee a voice for the minority party.

So thus far you have two elected officials using county government resources to effectively issue a press release in conjunction with a presidential campaign appearance and excluding the voice of the elected representative of the minority party.

But it gets even worse.

The 2024 primary election is April 23rd in Pennsylvania.

You wouldn’t know that if you visited the Montgomery County Voter Services website.

Want to know how to run for office? All the information on the site still is for 2023!

Is this candidate suppression?


Want to know when the deadline to register to vote in the primary? All the information on the site is still for 2023!

We can not find a single piece of information on the voter services website about the 2024 primary. Again, it is three months away (as of today).

So again, issue press release around campaign visit (strike one), exclude minority party commissioner (strike two), and now don’t even have the website about the upcoming primary election updated (strike three)!

Instead of issuing press releases, maybe they should focus on the county government doing the basics when it comes to elections. I don’t know, something like providing the most up-to-date election information on its website.

As a county commissioner and the chair of the Montgomery County Board of Elections, does Makhija plan to pontificate or actually govern? Same with Winder.

Everyone should be asking that question.