With Baltimore’s results still unknown after an early morning disappearing act, and other “significant failures,” Gov. Larry Hogan on Wednesday called for a report on the primary election from the Maryland Board of Elections and legislative hearings on what went wrong.
Hogan requested that the report be submitted by July 3 to his office, Secretary of State John C. Wobensmith, Board of Public Works and leaders of the Maryland General Assembly. He also asked the assembly to hold oversight hearings–a step Speaker Adrienne Jones and Senate President Bill Ferguson took earlier in the day–to fix the problems before the general election in November.
“Thousands of Marylanders either did not receive their ballots or received erroneous or late ballots,” Hogan said. “All of this is completely unacceptable. The most basic responsibility of the [state board of elections] is ensuring that free and fair elections are conducted accurately.”
Instead, there were “significant failures,” Hogan said.
In a statement, Ferguson pledged to get to the bottom of the mistakes that were made.
“We will improve our election process for the future,” he said. “And, most importantly, we will hold state and local agencies and officials accountable when we have the facts.”
A legislative hearing with elections administrator Linda Lamone and State Board of Elections Chairman Mike Cogan is scheduled for June 16, per The Sun.
Hogan did not go so far as for calling on Lamone to resign, as Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford and Comptroller Peter Franchot did.
And he said it’s pretty much impossible for him to fire her.
As Maryland Matters points out, Maryland law says that even if the State Board of Elections votes to remove Lamone, her replacement must be confirmed by the Maryland Senate before any change can occur.
Hogan said the law makes it so that the administrator doesn’t report to the governor, legislature or the board.
The original intent of the legislation makes some sense, Hogan said, because it preserves the election board as an independent body and prevents a partisan governor from installing all new board members and a new administrator to potentially rig an election.
“It’s supposed to be an independent body,” he said. “But they’re supposed to be accountable to somebody.”
In March, Hogan pushed back the primary election from April 28 to June 2 due to the coronavirus pandemic and ordered that it be conducted primarily through the mail.
Montgomery County and Baltimore City, two of the largest jurisdictions in the state, received their ballots late or not at all.
State election officials blamed the vendor SeaChange for not printing and shipping the ballots in time to be mailed on May 8. But the company countered that state officials didn’t deliver files for the largest counties until four or five days after a mutually agreed upon deadline of April 21.
More drop-off boxes and in-person voting centers were added in Baltimore City to provide more opportunities for residents to submit their ballots.
Just before the vote, advocacy group Common Cause Maryland raised concerns about Baltimoreans receiving ballots for the wrong council district. And some who chose to vote in person in Baltimore City dealt with long lines; polls didn’t officially close until 11:07 p.m.
There were some clear discrepancies as the results started to pour in on Tuesday evening. In the race to represent District 1 on the Baltimore City Council, the incumbent, Councilman Zeke Cohen, noticed a lopsided advantage from his primary challenger, social worker social worker Paris Bienert.
“State Board of Elections are you sure…?” he asked at 11:45 p.m.
About 2 a.m. Wednesday morning, all of the city’s results were scrubbed from the election board’s site and replaced with “NR,” or “not reported.”
State officials explained that a printing error that was flagged still ended up on some of the ballots distributed to the district. In addition to the council race, the error impacted an election for circuit court judge, they said.
Officials decided to remove the results after learning the printing error didn’t allow for some ballots in District 1 to be scanned and counted.
No other races were impacted, the statement said.
