The Tuesday, November 5, election in Greenbelt will find more than 1,000 newly registered voters in the city. This increase is driven largely by newly registered residents in Greenbelt West. This will be the second city election since Greenbelt Station was developed along the western edge of the city (although a few residents lived there and registered for the 2015 election). Equally important, but hard to quantify, is the fact that residents 16 and 17 years old will be able to vote for the first time in the city election. All seven incumbent city council members are running for re-election, along with William Orleans, who has been on the ballot a number of times.
As of early October, more than 13,800 residents are registered to vote. The total registration, as provided by Prince George’s County, is 13,814, an increase of 8.1 percent since the 2017 election (see table, page 7). The 2017 election itself had an increase of 11.5 percent from 2015. After a number of years of relatively static registration, it has been increasing in all segments of the city starting in 2017, not just in Greenbelt West. Greenbelt Station and Franklin Park form the Greenbelt West precinct.
Precincts
Greenbelt is represented in five county precincts; registration data by precinct are summarized in the table below. Precinct numbers are established by the county and names often refer to the voting location. In 2017, for the first time, Greenbelt West, voting at Springhill Lake Recreation Center, had the largest number of persons registered to vote: almost 23 percent of the total registration. This remains true for 2019 with Greenbelt West now having one quarter (25 percent) of the city registration.
| City Voter Registration | ||||||||
| (as of October 9, 2019) | ||||||||
| October | October | October | October | Increase | number of new registrants | distribution of new registrants | distribution of all registrants | |
| Precinct/ Voting Place | 2013 | 2015 | 2017 | 2019 | 2017-2019 | |||
| 03-Comm. Center | 2,837 | 2,656 | 2,799 | 2,968 | 6.0% | 169 | 16.3% | 21.5% |
| 06-Police Station | 2,249 | 2,154 | 2,199 | 2,286 | 4.0% | 87 | 8.4% | 16.5% |
| 08-Greenbelt West | 1,993 | 2,045 | 2,886 | 3,421 | 18.5% | 535 | 51.5% | 24.8% |
| 13-Greenbriar | 2,519 | 2,422 | 2,585 | 2,732 | 5.7% | 147 | 14.1% | 19.8% |
| 18-Schrom Hills Park | 2,543 | 2,177 | 2,306 | 2,407 | 4.6% | 101 | 9.7% | 17.4% |
| TOTAL | 12,141 | 11,454 | 12,775 | 13,814 | 8.1% | 1,039 | 100.0% | 100.0% |
However, the city is not usually described by voting precincts, but by the location of residents. People often think of Greenbelt as being in three sections, not five. Center City includes precincts 03 and 06; Greenbelt East includes precincts 13 and 18; and Greenbelt West is precinct 08. With that grouping in mind, Center City and Greenbelt East have virtually identical percentages of the registered voters – 38 and 37 percent respectively. Greenbelt West has 25 percent, up 2 percentage points from the last election. Thus although Greenbelt West has the largest number registered, it does not outweigh the other two sections of the city. Greenbelt West has also traditionally had a very low turnout but the number of voters increased somewhat in the 2017 election when more participation was reported. It will be interesting to see if voting turnout continues to increase in this precinct.