Primary Elections in Maryland Reveals What Needs to Change in November's General Elections

Maryland has undergone its primary election, but things did not go as smoothly as the people hoped. Votes are still being counted but there are inconveniences and patterns that the public is taking note of.

Ballot error

In Baltimore's District 1, there were errors on ballots that were mailed to voters that led to inaccurate results that can no longer be counted. The State Board of Elections wrote on June 3 that the error in the ballot title for the race between Democratic candidates Zeke Cohen and Paris Bienert was not corrected.

The board added that the officials requested the printing vendor SeaChange to correct the error during the printing process, but there were still improper ballots that were mailed out. This then led to the votes not being counted properly.

Around 75,000 ballots were sent out last week and the ballots were sent in by mail and were collected from drop boxes through the weekend. Both Democratic candidates questioned the early returns of the ballots especially since on the evening of June 2, Cohen got only 39 votes while Bienert already got 1,882.

The election officials of Baltimore could not be reached even after officials from mayoral campaigns are also seeking clarity over the matter.

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Voting in person

Despite the ongoing pandemic, people still want to vote in person. Elections officials encouraged voters to cast their ballots through the mail due to the pandemic that prohibits people from gathering, but there are those that still showed up.

On June 2, there were 42,451 people voted in person in Maryland, and 6,236 people showed up in Baltimore. While the total number of people who showed up in Baltimore only accounted for 2% of the eligible registered voters in the city, it was still double the number of voters who chose to go in-person during a special congressional election in District 7 last April.

Maryland's former secretary of state, John Willis, said that the turnout among the voters who did not get their ballots in the mail was predictable. However, elections officials also needed to take into consideration the voters who are not prepared for the sudden change in voting style.

What needs to change by November

There were two problems in the primary election in Maryland. The ballots that were delivered were not soon enough and that there weren't enough places to cast a ballot in person.

Maryland has blamed SeaChange for the late ballots. SeaChange then said that it received voter files late from the state. In addition, there were some voters whose mailed ballots were marked as undeliverable but were still recorded that they did cast a vote.

All of these discrepancies need to be resolved before the general election in November, which could still be affected because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Amy Cruice from the ACLU of Maryland stated that she recommends a logistics team that could head to polling places fast, scan and find the bottlenecks, and can solve the issues in real-time. She said that it is important that all things need to be resolved by November which is the most important election in the country.