Michelle L. Karczeski

Additional Information

Republican

Committee Name: Michelle Karczeski, A Clerk That Will Work

Address: PO Box 1202

Bel Air, MD 21014-

Phone: (410) 420-8148

Email: michellekarczeski@gmail.com

Website: www.michellekarczeski.com

Michelle L. Karczeski: The Best Clerk of the Circuit Court Harford County Has Had

When Michelle L. Karczeski was sworn in as Clerk of the Circuit Court for Harford County on December 1, 2022, she became the first woman ever elected to that office. The distinction matters. Mary E.W. Risteau was appointed clerk for a brief stretch in the late 1930s. Linda F. Settle held the job as interim clerk after James J. Reilly retired on September 30, 2022. Karczeski is the one voters put there.

Her story in Harford goes back much further than that ceremonial oath in the Bel Air courthouse. She was born in the county, graduated from Fallston High School — where she was part of a women’s state-championship lacrosse team — and earned a bachelor’s degree in geography, with a focus on cartography and urban planning, from Frostburg State University in 1992. She added a Project Management Professional certification in 2007. She lives in Bel Air. She and her late husband, Dave, raised two sons, Matt and Ryan. Dave died in June 2025.

Before she ever appeared on a ballot, Karczeski had already spent more than fourteen years working with the Maryland Judiciary. As the owner and president of SETA Consulting, LLC, a woman-owned firm she founded in Bel Air in 2008, she provided project management, help-desk, and IT consulting support to courts across the state. That was not theoretical knowledge. It was in-the-weeds work on the systems the Clerk’s office uses every day: the revenue-collection system that replaced legacy cash handling in District and Circuit Courts statewide, a pilot jury-management system in Cecil County that later expanded, the Attorney Information System, MDEC financials, and the Judiciary’s budget and finance systems.

That is why the fit has been a good one. Voters often treat Clerk of the Circuit Court as a ceremonial line on the ballot. It is not. The office keeps land records, administers juries, runs court financial systems, issues marriage and business licenses, and processes the filings that decide whether a deed is good, a case moves, or a judgment gets paid. In a county that keeps growing, errors in those files are not paperwork problems. They are other people’s property and legal rights.

Since taking office Karczeski has emphasized professionalism, modernization, staff support, and public access to records. In her 2026 League of Women Voters questionnaire she described a 53-person office — 52 deputy clerks and one appointed chief deputy — and said she was serving as President of the Maryland Clerks’ Association, working with clerks across the state on local business practices. That is a real voice for Harford in the machinery that actually runs Maryland’s circuit courts.

She is running for a second term on November 3. The Republican primary on June 23 was unopposed. Official returns: 19,623 votes.

The other side of the ballot is a scramble, not a record.

Democrat Shadé D. Bowman was designated by the Harford County Democratic Central Committee on March 10, 2026, appeared unopposed on the June primary ballot, and took 13,287 votes. On August 5 she declined the nomination. Two days later the same committee designated Matthew J. Brown — the same Matthew J. Brown who had just lost the Democratic primary for County Executive to Barbara Osborn Kreamer, 7,436 to 7,606.

Brown is an educator in Harford County Public Schools with a background in customer service, operations, legal support, and the American Red Cross. He holds a political-science degree from UMBC, with a minor in behavioral psychology, after starting at Harford Community College. He has never held elected office. Nothing in that résumé is court administration, land records, jury management, or the financial systems the Clerk’s office runs. Six weeks after losing a county-executive primary, he is the Democratic nominee for one of the most technical offices on the ballot because a central committee needed a name.

This is not a job where on-the-job learning is a luxury voters can afford. Karczeski has already done the work — more than three years in the office, and more than a decade inside the judiciary’s systems before that. Brown is asking Harford to hand him the keys to the land-records room because the other party’s first choice stepped aside in August.

Harford County deserves a Clerk of the Circuit Court who shows up with experience, not a leftover line on a sample ballot. Michelle L. Karczeski has spent her career, before and during her time in office, demonstrating exactly that. She is the best clerk this county has had. She has earned another term.

Smiling woman with long wavy hair wearing a maroon cardigan and black top.

Matthew J. Brown

Profile

Democratic

Committee Name: Friends of Matt Brown (Matthew Brown)

Address: 1837 Still Pond Way

Bel Air, MD 21015-

Phone: (410) 322-8332

Email: brownforcountyexecutive@gmail.com

Website: www.matthewbrownforharford.com

Social: www.facebook.com/matthewbrownforcountyexecutive

Matt Brown for Clerk of the Court? Harford Doesn’t Need a Socialist Experiment in the Courthouse

Matthew J. Brown is the Democratic candidate for Clerk of the Circuit Court in Harford County. After losing a razor-thin primary for County Executive to Barbara Osborn Kreamer, the Democratic Central Committee designated him for the Clerk race in August. His literature reads like a man who thinks the office is already his. That is not competence.

That is entitlement.

If he gets in, he will ruin the office.

Start with who beat him. Barbara Osborn Kreamer is a disbarred lawyer. In 2008 the Maryland Court of Appeals unanimously stripped her license for a pattern of ethics violations and incompetence: lack of diligence, lack of competence, failure to communicate with clients, misrepresentations, and unreasonable fees across multiple cases. She had already been suspended more than once and reprimanded. Maryland’s highest court said her conduct threatened public confidence in the legal profession and imposed the ultimate sanction. Brown could not even beat a disbarred attorney. Then he showed up for Clerk as if the county owed him the next title on the ballot.

There is also the address he lists with the Board of Elections: 1120 N Charles St, Suite 103, Baltimore, MD 21201. That is not Harford County. That is Baltimore City. Whether it is a campaign committee mailbox or something else, a candidate who wants to run Harford’s court records should not be listing a Baltimore suite as his official address. Local office is supposed to mean local roots. This listing does the opposite.

Brown works as a teacher’s assistant in Harford County Public Schools. Here is what that job is supposed to be.

In Harford County Public Schools, teacher assistants—often called paraeducators or inclusion helpers—support classroom teachers and help students with their academic and physical needs.

Core duties include instructional support: implement lesson plans and work directly with individual students or small groups under a teacher’s direction. Material preparation: prepare and organize instructional materials, classroom activities, and supplies. Student care and assistance: help students with disabilities or specific medical needs, which can include lifting or transferring students weighing up to 40 pounds, or performing specific tasks like sign language. Behavior management: help maintain a safe learning environment, including training in and performing proper restraint techniques when necessary.

Qualifications are a high school diploma or equivalent, passing the ParaPro Assessment with a score of 455 or higher depending on the position, strong verbal, written, and interpersonal communication skills, and the ability to meet physical requirements such as squatting, kneeling, and lifting.

That is important support work. It is not court administration. It is not records management. It is not running the Clerk’s office. The Clerk handles filings, land records, jury processes, and the machinery that keeps the Circuit Court functioning. Brown’s public résumé is political science at Harford Community College and UMBC, C. Milton Wright High School, some operations and Red Cross work, and classroom aide duties. That is not a Clerk of the Court résumé.

He has already shown what his writing looks like. He tried a Substack piece against me. A third grader could do better. Strong written communication is listed in the paraeducator qualifications. His own public writing fails that test. A man who cannot put together a coherent argument should not be anywhere near official court files. He should not even be a teacher’s assistant if this is the standard of the work he puts in public.

His politics make it worse. He ran for County Executive on more spending, more “affordability” talk, heavier school and community-center investment, and the usual progressive script. Call it socialist. Call it further left. The direction is the same: bigger government, thinner restraint, and an activist’s instinct to treat every office as a platform. The Clerk’s office is not a campaign. It is supposed to be neutral, precise, and boring in the best sense. An arrogant socialist who thinks he is entitled to the job is the last person who should touch it.

Why you should not vote for him is simple. He lost to a disbarred lawyer. He lists a Baltimore address. His job is classroom support under a teacher’s direction, not command of a court office. His public writing is sloppy. His literature sounds entitled. His politics are left-wing enough that “socialist, maybe communist” is not a stretch for the direction he wants government to go. Put that combination in the Clerk’s office and you get politicized records, sloppy process, and an office that stops being a clerk’s office and starts being a project.

Do not vote for Matt Brown for Clerk of the Court. Harford’s courts and records are not a consolation prize for a candidate who could not win the job he actually wanted.